One Wild Ride
by fragrantfields
Summary: Setting: A/U, Pre-attack, a small town outside Caprica City. Bill mustered out of the Colonial Fleet soon after the Cylon War was over and took another "career path". How can Laura Roslin fit into his increasingly "outlaw" life? References to "Caprica",flavors of "Sons of Anarchy" not XO .Ratings for themes, language, sexual content of some chapters.
1. Chapter 1 The Old Man, the Old Lady

**A/N:This saga began as a series of drabbles and grew into a longer work.**

**.**

**.**

The mechanic was a shaggy, rugged-looking man with a white smile under his mustache.

Cut-off denim sleeves showed thick biceps and varicolored ink. He had been a Viper pilot, a Cylon War Vet. Had two sons.

He'd pulled some time, by the crude bluish ink along his knuckles.

He went by "'Dama", or "the Old Man" these days. He hadn't been "Bill" in years. He was just an old biker in a motorcycle club, the Tauron Outlaws Motorcycle Club, Original Caprica, president of men like himself.

He held back 10% of every deal. A handful knew where the second cache was: Tigh-man, Doc, and Lee, his son and TOMCOC's V.P. Scattered cynical men across Caprica, on the edge of the law and certain that the Cylons weren't done with humanity any more than humanity was done with over-confidence.

Carolanne split while he was inside—he should have listened to his grandmother, he thought. Carolanne never did have the chops to be an MC Old Lady.

The long-legged cool redhead exiting the smoking sedan, now…rueful grin with a hard-ass edge, meeting his eyes with aplomb…she had Old Lady potential, if memory served.

"Hey, Laura. Your ride need work?"

She smiled.

"Yeah."


	2. Chapter 2 Running Late

Her color was high; she'd been walk-running in heels for two blocks. Adar's cold shoulder would be waiting when she slunk into the meeting, red hair sleeked neatly in front, a few strands still wildly tousled in the back where she hadn't been able to see in the cracked mirror. She'd cursed and yanked off her stockings at a stoplight when she noticed the runs. The breeze hitting the wet spots on her panties made her wish her skirt was longer. Grabbing the door, she steadied herself. At least her long jacket covered the mechanic's smudged fingerprints on her skirt.


	3. Chapter 3 If He'd Only Known

He was just going to fix her car. He wasn't planning to turn too quickly and run into her following too close. He would have cleaned up, gotten a shower, put on clothes with no rips, if he'd known. He'd have taken her out: dinner, wine, apartment, a decent bed.

If he'd known, he'd have ensured they had privacy, time to talk about the old days, had some laughs. But she'd been too close behind him, smelling like she used to, and the gritty bathroom in back had a lock on the door. And when they kissed, she'd turned it.


	4. Chapter 4 Presidential Abstinence

Richard Adar shoved the report under more folders as she walked in. He let himself enjoy a glimpse of long legs under a short navy skirt, a lingering glance at red waves falling over the breast of her jacket. He looked past her eyes.

"How's your car, Laura?"

His tone was lethally casual as he watched her puzzled frown.

"What are you talking about?"

His fingers toyed with the edge of the report as he met her eyes. He could almost feel the heat of her skin against his palms but steeled himself, keeping the desk between them.

"Your vintage Mustang your Dad left you. I understand you had to go quite a bit out of your way to get it…serviced."

Satisfaction battled with anger as he watched her cheeks begin to flush.

"Your security detail was alarmed that you chose a convicted felon to work on your antique"—

Her professional poise still intact, she interrupted, "That was the closest garage when it started over-heating."

—"vehicle, their alarm increasing when they lost sight of you for twenty-seven minutes."

He pulled out the folder, opening it. "The Secretary of Education appeared distracted and somewhat disheveled upon exit, then proceeded to the scheduled Cabinet meeting."

Her usually calm green eyes had gone icy. Where had his agreeable Laura gone, he wondered. Where'd this rebellious redhead come from?

"Richard, I'm done explaining myself to you. After all, I'm not your _wife._"

He ignored the stabbing guilt as he rose, hands white-knuckled on the desk. "You're not my_anything_, effective immediately. I feel suddenly abstentious, after reading this. Anything you need, get it from your hoodlum mechanic Adama."

He thought he'd see regret, not a sensual smile as she said, "It'll be my pleasure, Mr. President." She turned gracefully, walking out of his life.


	5. Chapter 5 Driving Lessons

**Summary: In this AU, after Laura Roslin has been dismissed by her boss and lover, President Richard Adar, she reflects on the beginning of her history with Bill Adama, when they both were so very young..**

**A/N: This, as well as Chapter 4, was written for A/R Drabbles prompt: "abstinence"**

**.**

She'd been so scared…he'd appeared so confident, his fear hidden, secret. Few enough years separated them in age, but the scars left from a brutal war made him a million years older than her. _He couldn't believe her father trusted him_, he'd thought, palms sweating.

He'd let her be in control, her foot on the pedal, her hand on the shift. He thought he'd have to struggle to get her to listen to him, thought she'd put up more of a fight…but she was eighteen, her wide green eyes begging him to understand that she trusted him. _Completely._ Begged him to be worthy of that trust.

She'd known how to drive a wimpy four-cylinder stick, but she'd walk away from him knowing how to manage a muscle car. He tried not to think about the walking away...He hadn't planned for this to happen. Things got out of control, clouds moving in way too fast.

One stop, a burger, a soda, and talking that wouldn't quit, her hair shining, falling over a nubby over-sized sweater. And the clouds had dumped over an inch of ice on the roads…

She asked, then begged him to drive. He was older, more experienced. He put her hands on the wheel and said he'd get her through it. They made it back to her house, her hands and feet, instruments under his control: clutch, downshift, turn right, ease up, turn into the skid. She was so scared, and she trusted his every word. She was shy and shaking when they got back, her eyes hot with adrenaline and safe landings.

_Can you stay_, she'd asked. In the dark garage, in the ice, the snow.

_When it comes to your Dad's daughters, I'm abstinent_, he'd joked, as he walked into the cold night, aching.

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	6. Chapter 6 Let Me Go Crazy

"Let Me Go Crazy"

Rating: M  
Setting: AU, long ago and far away...takes place after "One Wild Ride 5" (Driving Lessons)

_"I was a willow last night in my dream..."I bent down over a clear running stream...you kept me alive with your sweet flowing love" (Heart)_

_._

.

She looked at her reflection like a detective in a cheap paperback, searching for clues, signs, evidence. A slight abrading along her jawline…and it had taken the magnifying mirror to see that. She was safe, for now.

_Summer break, calls from an old friend, an old crush, a picnic, a stream_. The water had been clear as glass as she stretched out on the old plaid blanket, closing her eyes against the sunlight streaming between the limbs and leaves above their heads.

She'd heard he had a girl in the service, heard what happened. She didn't bring it up. Neither did he. She wondered if things would've gone differently if she'd offered condolences, her sympathy, but that had seemed so inadequate. She'd kept her mouth shut until he opened his, a whisper away from her lips.

He'd been like lava, inexorable, flowing, burning everything in his path, soft bites down her skin, shoving her bra aside, sucking flesh between his teeth. Hoarse husky murmurs, permissions sought and granted, two sets of zippers rasped, sweet wild tastes sparking between their tongues.

"I don't think I can"—

"Shh." He ignored her doubts and her ears burned; she could hear how wet she was. Then he touched her differently from how she touched herself. She thought she couldn't come like this, and then she knew she would, her amazement blazing away at his fingertips, the park disappearing into blackness and starfire.

She came back to herself with his length in her hand, him holding her wrist as he moved. She found her own grip and slid her fist to her rhythm. He buried his face in her neck as he shuddered, moving himself away from her clothes, coming over their clasped hands.

"Next time, bring a condom," she whispered.

He nodded slowly, mesmerized.

.

Apologies for the chapter confusion-these should be in the proper order now.


	7. Chapter 7 Autumn Leaves

** Autumn Leaves**

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Hot and sweet, a special scent bought for summer. Jasmine and ginger and a hint of vanilla. Tearing foil, catching breath, the rasp of evening beard-shadow on creamy skin. Curving dents in leather upholstery, heels dug into mossy creek banks. Hair combed in a tilted rearview mirror, blades of grass, flower petals, then the first shards of brown-turned leaves falling to the floorboards.

Castles were spun in the air, built of teaching positions and successful small businesses. He'd fix dinner while she graded papers. She'd do his accounts. The seasons turned. The castle's spires wavered and shimmered like the air above a bonfire.

She took a semester off-world. Summer brought an internship offer he encouraged her to take.

He got a job on a freighter with a Caprica-Aerilon run, gave up his apartment, put his stuff in storage.

They wrote, at first.

Her father said she wasn't home much, she'd gotten involved in educational legislative issues. She'd been accepted into the graduate program.

His friends said he wasn't around much, if he wasn't on a run, he was buying inventory for his uncle, looking towards his own shop one day.

She was off-world when she met a man, a fellow believer in education reform, clean hands and eyes the color of smoky Port. She hadn't caught up with Bill in almost a year. She put away that one summer's perfume.

He was off-world when he met a woman in an over-heated pub, eyes as dark as the earth she worked on her farm. Her husband went to fight Cylons once and never came back. Bill helped her get up hay on his shore leave.

Neither he nor Laura seemed to make planet-fall on Caprica at the same time anymore.

_Maybe one day_, they each thought, as the seasons kept changing.

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Sorry for the upload confusion in chapter order-should be in proper order now!


	8. Chapter 8 Ivy Covered Hallowed Halls

**Ivy-Covered Hallowed Halls**

_"She's been living in her uptown world" Billy Joel_

_._

His mouth was ridiculously dry, heart hammering like he expected pounding clanking steps, gunfire_. Get it together, Bill, it's been three years._

Easing through the brick and granite gates, he started looking for a parking spot, somewhere away from the Mercedes, the Volvos. Speed bumps and cobblestones rattled his primer-spotted Chevy as he cruised slowly through the campus, finally squeezing in behind a green dumpster. _Time for reconnoitering._

Bill's usual easy gait began to stiffen as each step revealed how long it had been since he'd set foot on college grounds. _When did jeans and t-shirts go out of style_? He'd picked out a new shirt, dark blue, with sleeves long enough to cover his Viper tattoo. His faded jeans were free of oil stains and rips. He'd shined his black leather boots, his pitted cheeks were clean-shaven, moustache neatly trimmed.

He didn't see anyone else looking even remotely like him.

The manicured grounds held clusters of students; khakis and polo shirts, beardless young faces, pressed slacks and long shorts, skirts and breezy spring sweaters, long shining hair. Even the grad students looked like they'd never been touched by the Cylon War. So many books held so casually….

A flash of red hair caught his eye, near the three-story lecture hall her father had suggested. He'd taken a step towards her before he scanned the scene, then faltered to a stop. His Laura wore a conservative navy suit, modest pink blouse, and…were those _pumps_? She juggled a portfolio between herself and a clean-cut handsome young man, smiling and chatting with her classmates. He could hear her laugh across the yard.

The guy threw a familiar arm over Laura's shoulder. Bill turned and walked back to his car. He flung the crumpled parking ticket out his window as he drove away.

.

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	9. Chapter 9 Separate Lives

Laura was still on her adrenaline high after her final group presentation for the semester. The professor had actually thought they had a decent working model for inter-colony record transfers that would track migrant children as their parents worked between worlds. She was still shaking: they had found out right before their presentation that a representative from the Ministry of Education was observing. Her pulse had skyrocketed, her nervous fingers ripping corners off her note cards. She sent up an extra prayer of thanksgiving to the Lords of Kobol that she'd borrowed her roommate's interview suit this morning. Any edge it had given her, she was grateful for.

Brad had taken a last look at the professor's notes and wrapped an arm around her, giving her a congratulatory kiss on the cheek before twining fingers with Michael to pull him towards the dining hall. The couple was almost to the crosswalk when Brad turned back to her.

"Did you see that guy watching you? Older dude?"

"What…no—who was he?"

"No idea. Looked rough around the edges, didn't look like he goes here."

"It's that guy—see?" Michael pointed out a primer-speckled Chevy, muffler roaring. Something flew out of the window as the driver took off. There was something familiar in the tilt of his head…

She walked over by the dumpster and stooped to pick up what he'd tossed. _Just doing my part to keep our campus clean_...The set of his shoulders wasn't really that familiar. Not after three years. It could have been anybody.

Anybody with a thick head of dark brown hair

Anybody comfortable with driving a near-vintage stick around town.

She wasn't that surprised when the smoothed-out parking ticket had "William Adama" on it. Or that the breeze suddenly seemed tinged with jasmine and ginger.


	10. Chapter 10 Dotted Line

"Sign here…and here, then initial the other pages."

Bill Adama scratched his name on pages of "terms" and "conditions." The bank officer had the nervous sweats, eyes twitching to the envelope of fifties on the table.

"Your copy of the disclosure papers, Mr. Adama."

The man's shaking hand made the papers rattle as he set them by the cash. Bill raised an eyebrow at the jumpy little banker, wondering if he saw this for the farce it was.

The paper wouldn't disclose where the money had come from for the down payment on the garage Bill was buying.

It wouldn't disclose the lines he'd crossed to earn it.

It wouldn't disclose the new uneasiness in his uncle's eyes when he looked at Bill, questioning but not wanting to know.

The piles of cash stunk of hidden holds and engine grease and a faint tang of copper…but it spent as well as honest earnings.

He'd dreamed, once, of being in an office like this, Laura's hand on his knee under the table as they signed on a house loan._Three bedrooms for the children that would come, two bathrooms: one for her scents and soaps, one for his grease and grime._

He dug, almost ripping the pen through the paper. She'd get that one day, he knew. It just wouldn't be with him.

The loan officer handed him keys to a four-bay garage with false walls, underground rooms and passages that weren't on the plans filed down at the courthouse. They didn't shake hands.

"All done?" The blonde's predatory smile was framed by carefully mussed hair. She posed against his bike like she'd just gotten off the pole.

"Yeah." He handed her a helmet.

"Daddy'll be so happy," she gushed.

"That's what he pays me for," he said, starting the engine.


	11. Chapter 11 Coming to the Table

The smell of sawdust and fresh shellac drifted over the long carved table. The heavy doors shut out the noise from the street, but the revving of Harley engines in the parking lot came through. Young-old men straggled through the twin doors, a couple still holding the thousand-yard stare of old combat in their eyes.

One slipped in the back entrance, sunglasses and cap suggesting an outstanding warrant.

One was prematurely grey, time spent patching up Cylon-torn men taking its toll. He'd be white-haired before thirty.

Decorated leather vests spread out along the long wooden table. Stylized Vipers with a grinning skull in the cockpit, an outline of a Battlestar worked into the background, a patch showing a human hand at the sweet spot on a broken Cylon neck. A nod to their first backer, to the Adama heritage, in a rusty red and brown image of Tauron seen from space. There was one for each man, and a few extra for those who would come later.

Saul Tigh took his seat next to the head of the table, his grin wild and crazy, a streak of coral lipstick on the edge of his white t-shirt and last night's beer still on his breath. He handed Bill a stolen gavel with a hand still showing red swollen knuckles.

Bill looked around the table, counting unfilled chairs. Hints would be dropped at VA halls all over Caprica, Viper tats flashed and recognized, names of Battlestars whispered between restless, cynical men. The table would fill.

Outside this chapel of structured lawlessness, the garage would hum and grind, earning legitimate money for the families of the men at the table. Inside, over the carved wood, other business would take place.

Bill banged the gavel down and opened the meeting.

_So say we all._


	12. Chapter 12 Memories of Sweeter Days

Bill's apartment had been tiny, the bed a single. It had been a hot, muggy August that year and he left the windows open, the ceiling fan providing a lazy breeze. Moving from the creek bank to the bed made everything feel more…deliberate. Pragmatism trumped passion, at first.

_You've seen me before_, she'd said.

_This is different_, he'd said. _This is all of you. And me. And you're so beautiful._

So slow…they'd lain still and marveled at the artistry of his dark arm over her pale stomach, the pink and white glimpses of her breast between his splayed fingers. His fingers had moved then, working in her folds and opening her as his tongue and teeth teased from mouth to neck to nipple. She'd lain there, catching her breath after her first orgasm as she watched him roll a condom over his thick cock, her eyes wide and nervous.

The first time, he'd stopped when she winced and bit her lip, and he stroked her hair and made gentle shushing sounds, kissing her eyelids, her temples.

The second time, she'd grabbed his ass when he pulled back at her sharp groan, drawing him back into her. She trapped him with a leg around his thigh and they rode his finishing wave, her shoulder accepting his tears and whispered love-talk.

The third time, it was finally as glorious as her mother's trashy books had promised. She felt free to roll and arch and buck against him, pulling her own pleasure from his tongue, fingers, cock. Her cry had floated out the window, his muffled roar following.

**********************************************************

The tall, lean-muscled man on top of her paused, touched her face, asked what she was thinking. His look was confident, sure the loving smile was for him.

"Just happy thoughts," she said.

_Old ones._


	13. Chapter 13 Time Machine

Bill walked out of the tidy garage, wiping grease off his hands with a rag and keeping his eyes straight ahead. Half the garage had been used for storage and there were too many boxes with "Laura" scribbled on the side with black marker.

"I dunno, Mr. R. I'd have to start pulling her apart to really tell, but so far, looks like a new engine, new brakes, radiator...and that's just to get her running. The seats have gone to rot, the dash"—

"The frame's solid, Bill. The bones of her…they're as good as the day she rolled off the line."

"Oh, I think it could be done…but it's gonna take a lotta time, and a lotta money just in parts."

A trick of a shaft of afternoon light made the wood-grained steering wheel shine through the dust. If he'd have looked, he could have seen landmarks of the summer of Laura Roslin scattered throughout the interior. He hadn't let himself look. The car held too many memories…

"…memories."

Bill twitched at the echo. "Sorry, sir…what was that?"

"I said you can't put a price on memories. This car…it was the last car my wife picked out. The last one she drove, before she got too sick." Laura's father sighed. "She still felt good that day. I can see her now, ragtop down, her hair so pretty in the sun, cooler in the back…we spent all day out at the lake."

Bill started a slow flush. He remembered that lake.

"Tear out everything that's broken, Bill. Strip her down to the frame…and start rebuilding her. Some things…" His voice faltered, remembering loving green eyes. "Some things are worth making whole again."

Night found Bill poring over catalogues, looking at paint samples, hunting for the right shade of sparkling emerald green.


	14. Chapter 14 Long & Low & Sleek & Fast

It was beautiful. Low and lean, sparkling emerald in the sun, the wild horse on the grill shining with a silver-white glow. The black rag-top was slick and supple, ready to retract on a summer day. It looked like dangerous laughter and innocence made metal.

Mr. Roslin stopped listening to Bill's recitation of parts and labor within minutes, his humming an echo of his daughter's as he ran his hand lightly over the new paint.

"Bill, it _never_ looked this good. Not even when she was new."

"I'm glad you're satisfied with it. It was a pleasure to work on...she's a real beauty."

Bill's smile was lit with old embers of past summer heat. Every scrap of old leather, the pieces of faded carpet with old dirt ground deep into the fibers, the smooth worn wooden knob of the gearshift…he had a memory attached to every inch of the old muscle car. There had still been a strand of auburn hair caught in the back seat belt catch, almost buried under the back of the seat. He'd felt foolish when he'd wound it around his finger, then slipped it off and into his wallet…but he'd done it just the same.

In the evening, when the shop was all but abandoned, he'd put a tape on the sound system, songs of that winter he'd taught her to really handle the car. And songs of that following summer that he'd thought would stretch out forever, until life and plans and reality got in the way.

He was adjusting the mirrors for the third time when Mr. Roslin spoke again.

"She's going to love it."

Bill thought he'd be used to that hitch in his breath whenever Mr. Roslin made a reference to Laura by now. It still always caught him by surprise. Keeping her close in his memories didn't hurt as much as being reminded again that she was on Caprica, following a path that wouldn't be his to share.

The older man kept his eyes on the reflective finish. "She's coming back to Caprica City soon. She'll be doing some substitute teaching, start looking for a permanent position in one of the local schools."

Bill buffed a non-existent mar on the chrome trim in front.

Mr. Roslin cleared his throat. "Her sisters are thrilled she'll be closer to home. Me, too, for that matter."

Popping the hood, Bill nodded absently as he checked fluid levels again. He wondered if his flushed neck would be hidden by the angle of the hood, if Mr. Roslin would be too polite to notice. He hoped so.

"I'm going to ask Laura to bring it to you for maintenance after I give it to her." He stood at Bill's elbow until Bill had tightened all the caps and had given the engine a final check.

"To my place." He sighed. "Mr. R, you might want to ask her where she wants to take it. She might have another preference."

Mr. Roslin shook his head. "I know my daughter. She'll want to stick with someone she trusts. And I'd prefer she stay with someone I trust, too."

Bill felt a twinge of embarrassment and wondered if Mr. Roslin could see hints of that summer in his eyes, but the old man was looking fixedly at the bottom half of the Viper tattoo on Bill's bicep.

_I know my daughter_, he'd said. Bill wondered what he knew about their history, and if she ever mentioned his name anymore.

Bill could smell her perfume though the leather, deep in the frame. He wiped the grease off his hands and stuck the shabby cloth back in his toolbox, taking one last deep breath.

"If she needs anything, let me know." He clicked his toolbox closed.

"I'll be around."


	15. Chapter 15 Anything For Love

The crowded lobby swirled around her as she made her way to the bank of pay phones. The noise of crying children and arguing adults made her head throb, adding to the pain in her nose and cheek. A draft from an overhead vent chilled the back of her neck and she reached up to adjust her scarf before realizing it wasn't there.

Laura swore under her breath. She must have dropped the blood-soaked scarf when she got out of the cab. She remembered looking at the bright butterflies stained with red, the errant thought that they were bleeding, too, flitting through her mind as she paid the driver. Maybe she could call the company later, she thought. She rummaged through her purse for the receipt, laying the "intimate partner violence" brochure she'd been given down on a small wooden bench. She didn't pick it up again. He wasn't a "partner" and "intimate" seemed too sweet a word to be associated with this.

She paused to cough, choking on the blood trickling down the back of her throat. She tried to block out the racket of the crowded E.R. lobby, huddling closer to the phone. "I'm fine, Dad. I just need a ride home. The cab ride here took my last cubit."

"What did—"

"I'll be out front, Dad." She replaced the receiver before he could finish his question.

"You need to press charges, Laura."

She held the ice pack to her nose, avoiding the two stitches on her cheek. "Dad, it would be in the papers then. I'd have to go to court, testify...I'm so close to getting a contract—I'll be an assistant teacher forever if I start making enemies."

"They won't publish your name."

The image of a hand with a huge class ring coming towards her face kept looping through her mind. "They'll publish_his_ name, though. People knew we were going out. "

"And nobody told you the coach was a drunk and a woman beater?"

She shifted the ice pack. "I don't know if they knew."

"Maybe if the last woman he did this to reported it, they _would_'_ve_ known."

She swallowed a sob, the faint popping in her ears making her head pound again. "Can we just go home, please? And not talk about this?"

She'd be back at her apartment in the morning, straightening the broken glass and mopping up the spilled wine. Tonight, though, she wanted the comfort of her old room, her dresser with its arrangement of old pictures and dusty perfume bottles, her old bed half-covered in stuffed animals. She was ready to wallow in safety for a night before stepping back into her tough adult world tomorrow.

She finally broke the silence that had settled between them. "The car looks great, Dad."

She ran her hand over the dashboard and the gleaming wood trim. The seats creaked, as new leather will, and she wished she could have smelled it through the thick cotton in her nostrils. Even with all the refurbishing, it was still the car of her memories: she and her sisters, her mother at the wheel, their hair flying around their faces as they had laughed in the summer sun. And other times…

Her father seemed relieved at the change in topic. "Glad you think so, sweetheart. I was saving this for your birthday, but under the circumstances…I think we'll call this an early present."

She ran her fingers over the wooden gearshift. "Are you sure, Dad? This was your baby," she teased.

She caught the sight of his fingers gripping the wheel, his arthritic knuckles standing out in sharp relief. "You're my baby. And you'll never have to call a damn cab again to get away from some asshole."

The pain in her face was making her nauseous but she was not so distracted that her father's swearing didn't get her attention. "Dad…Daddy"—she put her hand over his—"I know this looks bad enough, but this is all there is. He didn't…do anything else."

He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. "I figured…I would hope you would've told me if he had."

Her laugh was an ugly sharp bark. "That was what set him off. We'd had dinner, a couple of drinks, I was trying to get him to leave…and he didn't like that."

"So he punched you in the face?"

She leaned forward and tapped the speedometer. "Ease up, Dad." Leaning back in the plush leather seat, she continued. "I think he punched me more over how I worded my rejection."

When she told her father what she'd said, Mr. Roslin smiled for the first time since he'd answered her call. Laura finally started to relax, pain ebbing as she watched the Mustang gobble up the painted white lines that led towards home.

A brightly lit marquee to her right caught her eye_. Adama Automotive Repair_ was still lit up, big bikes visible through the half-shut gates, a few men standing around a fire barrel talking and drinking.

"That's where I got her fixed up. Bill did all this himself."

None of the men she glimpsed had the right build to have been him. She closed her eyes in the dark, surprised by the fluttering reaction her body gave at the memory of his solid frame. She could almost feel the cool leather dashboard under her bare feet, seat pushed back and reclined as far as it would go…another thin trickle of blood down her throat brought her back to the present.

"How's he doing?" She made her slightly choked voice as casual as she could manage.

"He stays busy. He and some other guys he knew during the War formed a motorcycle club. Did a charity ride last month for the children's hospital."

Bill Adama's in a…motorcycle gang?"

She looked back but the bright sign was out of sight. She knew he had always wanted a Harley…he'd said it was the next best thing to a Viper for the planet-bound. She tried to picture him riding at the head of a group of bikers but all that came to mind were images from old movies.

"Club, honey. It's a motorcycle _club_. Mechanics and Harley enthusiasts."

She was still picturing Bill Adama in leathers when her father pulled into their drive.

Mr. Roslin waited until she was asleep, closing the garage door behind him as he dialed Sam Adama's number from memory.

The Ha'la'tha enforcer was quiet at Mr. Roslin's soft question.

"I've got too much heat on me right now, Mr. R. Ordinarily I'd say yes, but…hey, you know my nephew, right? Bill Adama? Doesn't he work on your cars?"

"Yes, but I didn't think he was…."

"He's not, really, but he'd do this for you. For her."

"How much?"

"Pro bono, man. With our respect .I'll work out the details with Bill."

"Sam, I don't want Laura to ever know about this."

"I'm sure Bill will feel the same way."

The Pyramid Captain of Persephone High was grumbling in third period study hall. "Coach is going to be out the rest of the season. Says he dropped one of his weights on his hand, broke it in three places."

"Bummer."

"No shit. Then he ran face-first into the leg press while he was trying to get to the phone."

The other boy grimaced. "Man, that musta hurt like frak."

The soft scratching of chalk on the blackboard stopped. The assistant teacher darted a look at them over her shoulder.

"No talking, boys."

"Yes, Miss Roslin."

The two teens went back to their homework.


	16. Chapter 16 Community Roots, Rotten

Bill tried to stare down the thick-necked man sitting across the carved table, but the sounds of crying and puking in the background kept distracting him. He wondered what kind of father could be so callus towards his own child, and told himself no matter what else happened, he'd be a protective father. He'd never expose his child to danger or shame.

Arlo Thorn seemed to have no problem ignoring his daughter's sounds of distress, much as he'd had no problem ignoring her initial unease at taking her turn on the pole at his club. Bill had felt Carolanne's embarrassed nervousness more than her father ever had, and at the time, he hadn't regretted shelling out cubit after cubit to keep her at his table and away from sweaty grabbing hands.

He hadn't regretted that decision until he saw her play another newcomer the same way six months later. The brimming blue eyes, the shaky smile that kept slipping….She had taken his bitter "You're good" as a compliment, and her cool "It was just business, Bill" was the closest thing to an apology he'd ever get.

There were times he wondered how much of what came later had been at her father's behest; the flirting, her frequent presence at the shop while Bill labored to ready it for opening. He got through those days by trying to reach the Carolanne he thought she might have been, before her father had put her to work. It was _that_ Carolanne to whom he had finally succumbed, her so lush and ready and wanting after they had shared too many shots of tequila, him still broken after seeing, once again, the distance between his life and Laura's.

Their lovemaking had almost been healing for both of them. He had entertained a brief hope that he could show her enough care, enough kindness to keep that side of Carolanne dominant. There were times when her sweetness was almost enough to sooth his old wounds, her acceptance of his new lifestyle a balm, when he stepped over another line. It wasn't enough to wipe out the "might have been" thoughts of Laura, but it was something to hold onto when the waves of longing and memories crashed over him.

Bill had hoped that time with him would strengthen that part of Carolanne. Her out-of-control rage when he refused to take her in the freshly-restored back seat of Mr. Roslin's Mustang shattered that hope, as she had shattered a beer bottle against the garage wall next to his head. She had seemed primed for battle ever since he had started working on Mr. Roslin's car (_Laura's car,_ his mind whispered) with obvious reverence.

He had grabbed her wrist to keep her from throwing a wrench through the windshield, and she had grabbed his cock through his jeans as she had taunted him to do more, go further, make it hurt, frak her like a real man, not a sentimental pussy in love with a frakking _car_.

Still bleeding from slivers of brown broken glass, he'd let go then, all his bitterness ramping up his adrenalin as he shoved her cut-off jeans down with one hand and bent her over his workbench, taking her with rough desperation. Her obscene encouragement dwindled to moans and gasps as he worked her for his own pleasure until his orgasm hit, sharp and hard. As his last drops of come spurted inside her, he'd looked up at the emerald green Mustang and had hated himself for making the car an unwilling witness to this travesty of love-making.

Carolanne had not been around much since that night. He'd seen her a couple of times as she accompanied her father's associates to the underground rooms below the garage. He retreated to his office those nights, not wanting to know what they were carrying.

The only bright spot over the past six weeks had been seeing Mr. Roslin's delight with his restored car, and even that had been tainted for Bill when he thought of that night, wondering if a ghost of that scene might be still reflected in the gleaming polished surface. He had seized on his uncle's request a couple of weeks later as a welcome penance.

Normally not a man to seek out a fight, Bill had reveled in every punch, every snap of bone he had delivered to the blustering high school coach. He told himself he was administering a rough justice, pushing his searing jealousy to the back of his mind. He had no right to be jealous over Laura Roslin, he told himself. _She wasn't his and never would be _was ringing in his head as he started on the coach's face.

Bill stroked his abraded knuckles absently, trying to get past the memories of the past few weeks as Mr. Thorne talked, pausing occasionally to look up at the man standing next to him.

Bill's eyes followed Thorn's, flicking to the sag-jowled suburban lawman standing next to an empty chair, one hand on the back, not quite daring to take a seat. Sheriff Fisk looked embarrassed to be here...or maybe he was scared. Bill noted the increasing sweat rings darkening Fisk's tan uniform under the arms and wondered how much he knew.

"Look, son, you've got a clean record, you're a veteran…it'll be a cakewalk."

"It's not my frakking cake. I'm not the one who decided to use Carolanne to transport stolen goods."

He noticed the sheriff twitch at his words. Bill's big hands toyed with the gavel, envisioning it going through the bridge of Thorn's nose and into his brain. He noted idly that he was getting more used to violence against man rather than machine as time passed. "This is between you and her," he continued.

"What about what's between _you _and her?" Stone-colored eyes narrowed to slits as Thorn gave Bill a grotesque mocking smile.

Stomach lurching, Bill felt all the small catastrophes of the past months pile on top of him like rocks, pressing his breath out of his lungs. "I'll do right by Carolanne. But I'm not going to sit in a cell while my child's being born."

"You think it makes you a better man to stand aside and let your child be born in prison? What kind of care do you think she'll get inside? You want her to go through labor handcuffed to a prison hospital bed?"

Bill studied the wood patterns in the gavel, shoulders slumping. The whorl of the grain looked like a whirlpool, sucking him down against his best efforts to swim away.

Fisk finally spoke up, voice wavering as he looked from Thorn to Bill. He fidgeted with his belt like he didn't quite know what to do with his hands. His fingers strayed to his holster once, freezing when both Thorn and Bill tensed. Fresh sweat broke out on his forehead as he laughed nervously and raised his hand to wipe it away.

"See, Bill, Carolanne's got a couple of priors... Oh, she—she didn't tell you that?" Fisk's eyes shied away from Thorn's glare.

"Now, I think things can be worked out with the district attorney…change the facts around a little in the police report about what was found where...Mr. Thorn's attorney'll tell me exactly how the report needs to read to clear Carolanne and not make it too hard on you." Fisk grimaced. "Just bad luck the SBI got wind of the bust before I could get in to do more damage control. Stupid rookie didn't know all dealings with Mr. Thorn's business go through me first." He looked at Thorn again, seeming to need assurance that he was pitching this right.

Thorn was nodding now. "Less than a year, Lampkin says. Closer to eight months if things go okay inside."

The crying and retching noises from the other room had stopped. Bill could feel her hovering on the other side of the door, knew she was waiting on his answer.

He had barely finished a reluctant nod when Thorn spoke again, his smile lit with sadistic amusement. "One more thing, Adama…you'll need to get married."

Bill's vision swam red as his stomach twisted again. "The _frak_ I do. I can take care of—"

He broke off mid-protest as the door to the chapel swung open. He knew it wouldn't be Carolanne—not even _she_ had enough brass to come into this room uninvited. He took an immediate dislike to the well-dressed intruder as he saw him pause at the door and exchange nods and smiles with Thorn.

"Can't be compelled to testify against your wife, Adama." The slender man in sunglasses strolled in like he owned the place, speaking with a grating false familiarity. He flicked a business card on the table in front of Bill. "You can choose to do so…but…" Romo Lampkin looked over his glasses at Bill, nodding his head once at Thorn. "I wouldn't advise it."

Bill looked at the card, recognizing the name. He never thought the likes of Romo Lampkin would be representing him. It looked like Thorn was bringing out the big guns to sweeten the deal. It figured he wouldn't trust Bill's sense of responsibility towards his unborn child to guide his decision, that he'd have to add incentives and threats. Bill looked at each man in turn. Thorn's face was implacable. Fisk was almost mournful, like he still had a residual sense of right and wrong. Lampkin just seemed faintly amused by Bill's protests, like he recognized it for the sound and fury it was, signifying nothing.

_Defeated._

Bill stared at the carvings in the table. "Get the frakking priest."

He could feel barred doors slamming shut already.


	17. Chapter 17 I'd Lie for You

"You sure you want to do this?"

Bill stared out the windshield and wished he had come alone. But that would have posed a problem later….

"I'm sure."

Lampkin gave him the side-eye over the rim of his glasses. "Keep a watch on what comes out of your mouth, Adama. Be a pity, your old love called to the stand to testify against you." His smirk turned to alarm as Bill wrapped a big paw around his right wrist.

"I thought you said it would never get to that point."

"Get your hand off my wrist or you _will _get a trial instead of a deal, Adama. And trust me, you don't want that." He shook his wrist after Bill let go. "Just breaking your balls a little, mate. Didn't know you were so sensitive. Would have thought big war heroes like you could take a little ribbing."

Bill looked at the slick little attorney with the permanent sneer for a few minutes in silence, watching his mouth twitch like there was more he wanted to say.

"Lampkin, do you have a problem with veterans? That's not the first crack like that you've made."

"Oh, no…Great Lords of Kobol, why would I have any problems with veterans? I didn't mind being bumped from the best law school on Libran because a Cylon War vet got preference. Or taking out loans at three percentage points higher interest because I didn't fight in the Great War." All of Lampkin's carefully cultivated affability dropped away as his tone grew increasingly bitter. "Got your girlie's daddy to thank for that."

Bill almost missed the last part as he struggled with his temper. He could see why Thorn and Lampkin got along…both had contempt for the men and women who had fought the Cylons, begrudging every dime spent on veterans' benefits.

"What are you talking about?"

"Oh, you didn't know?" Lampkin arched an eyebrow. "Your old girlfriend never told you Mr. Roslin spearheaded the push in the Ministry of Education to get special educational benefits for vets? Right thorn in the side of the Defense Department, too, he was." He grinned, thin-lipped and mean. "Of course, the Defense Department have their own Thorns, as it were." He drew his eyebrows together with mock seriousness. "Costs must be contained, wouldn't you agree, Mr. Adama? After all, the war's been over for years."

Blue eyes flashing, Bill glared at his lawyer. "Why didn't you fight, Lampkin? You're of an age that you should have served."

Lampkin laughed. "You boys were doing splendidly without me. By the time I was of an age to serve, my doctor said I had a bum ticker. Nothing for it but to watch from the sidelines."

"Would you be so Godsdamned smug if we had lost?"

"Half the reason I turned to the study of law, mate. Cockroaches and lawyers…we can survive anything."

"My father was a lawyer. He wasn't anything like you. He was a public defender."

"Oh, so you come by your white knight complex honestly, then."

Bill looked at him in a mix of fury and amazement. "How is it nobody has beaten the shit out of you?"

Lampkin laughed again. "I only goad people who need me really, really badly. Like I said, mate…I'm a survivor."

.

.

.

Laura folded and unfolded her napkin, then firmly folded it closed one last time when she realized she was fidgeting. It had been so long since she'd seen Bill in the flesh, although pictures of him had accompanied every move she'd made over the years.

And so had the memories. She'd chided herself for being a foolish romantic even as she'd gone out to her father's vintage car after he'd gone to bed, sitting in the back seat with her head tilted back and her eyes closed, remembering.

She had felt the sense of a thick body, broad-chested and slicked with summer sweat hovering over her, close enough to taste, felt the gathering of sensation between her legs, making her swollen and liquid. She'd itched to put the top down but the quiet of the night precluded making that much noise. When she drove it back to her place, though, she'd put it down, reveling in the wind whipping through her hair as she shifted through the gears, smooth and clean.

She'd had three orgasms that night, imagining her slim fingers being replaced by thick callused ones that knew exactly how to touch and tease her until she was flying apart. She couldn't replicate the other things he'd done, though…there was no substitute for the strong arms that had held her so tenderly, the gentle kisses feathering at her temples and throat. She had enjoyed a couple of sex partners over the years…but she hadn't had a _lover_ since Bill Adama, and that realization kept dancing on the surface of her consciousness as she fell asleep.

She had still been working up her nerve to call him, compliment him on the restoration, see where that went, when her phone rang. She thought it was almost like they had a connection that could stretch over time and space without breaking. Of _course _she was happy to hear from him. Of _course_ she could meet him for lunch.

She had rearranged her apartment after the incident with her former co-worker. After Bill's call, she opened the dresser drawer that held a picture of them, taken towards the end of that summer. His arm had been around her and he had been grinning that goofy grin he showed when he was really happy and carefree. She finally set it on the bookcase across from her front door. It would be the first thing he would see when he walked into her apartment.

She couldn't wait to see where that would lead. She couldn't wait to see him. His feel, his touch, even his smell was so clear in her mind. She motioned the waiter to bring her some more water and checked her watch again. He'd be here any minute...and they could start on restoring what they'd had together.

.

.

.

Bill could feel the impression of his cheap new ring through his pocket. The even tan of his fingers hadn't been marred yet by its presence.

"I have to say, Bill, your call really surprised me." She glowed in the late morning sun, a flake of croissant on her upper lip until she licked it off, driving him another step towards crazy.

"Your dad said you'd settled in Caprica City. I figured we were finally in the same place at the same time."

Laura stroked her hair behind one ear. "We've been in the same place before. My last year of school, remember?"

He grinned in spite of his creeping blush. "You saw me that time?"

"When you were leaving. I spent the next few months wondering why you'd left." Deep green eyes pulled at him to explain, old leftover trust from years ago still shining there. He wondered what would be left of that trust once all his truths came out. He knew he was making things worse by being here, by seeing her like this, every word out of his mouth a lie. He was unrepentantly selfish about this one last chance to see her, skating over his past discomfort at seeing their lives diverge. He could go back to his responsibilities, he could bear anything, if he could just have these few hours.

They talked as other diners came and went, shadows growing longer. She touched the back of his hand. They both smiled, remembering when a touch like that had meant the world. They laughed some, shared a couple of silences. Bill talked more about her than himself, steering the conversation away from treacherous topics. Her probing looks, the occasional quirked eyebrow told him she knew there were words going unsaid. Her half-smile told him she could accept that, for now.

He encouraged her to apply for a senior teaching position at a school across town. Told her she could do so much more that be an assistant teacher. Told her she didn't have to settle for less than the best. And if she noticed that he got a bit choked up at the last part, she didn't mention it out loud.

As they were talking about how the Cylon War should be presented in high school history classes, Bill saw her frown past his shoulder. He could feel his brief escape coming to an end as he turned to see what she was looking at: a slender man in sunglasses loitering outside the plate-glass window, checking his watch and peering in at the table for two, plates now empty.

Bill studied her face like he was trying to memorize each curve, each plane. They both fell silent as Bill took her hand, kissing each knuckle. He slowly shook his head at her invitation to see her new apartment.

"I have an appointment. Maybe another time." His smile didn't match his wistful eyes as he turned and walked away. He could feel her puzzled glance following him.

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.

.

The smell of disinfectant, cigarettes and old sweat permeated the chipping paint in the shabby jail. A bored deputy fumbled with paperwork as Lampkin leaned impatiently over the counter. "My client is here to turn himself in, and I'd like his processing to start sooner rather than later, officer. Do you…would you like me to help with that?" He gestured with artifical helpfulness as the deputy pecked at the keyboard of the grimy terminal. The deputy glared at Lampkin, and then at Bill.

"Your client in that much of a hurry to get inside, Mr. Lampkin?"

Lampkin turned to Bill. "Better not to languish in Holding," he explained. "Soonest begun, soonest done, as they say."

At directions from the officer, Bill emptied his pockets on the counter. Lampkin smirked at the discarded ring. "I'll make it my personal responsibility to make sure this gets to your bride safe and sound. As for why it was in your pocket…tell you what, Adama…I'll consider the events of the day to be covered under attorney-client privilege, if you like. Favor to you, you might say, for showing me just how muddy the clay feet of war heroes can be."

The officer stood impatiently at the electronic door, pointing towards the painted footsteps with an irritated gesture. Bill started towards the door, then turned back towards Lampkin.

"I appreciate you keeping today to yourself. You should know, though, that doesn't change my opinion of you." His voice was low and bitter. "You're a coward and a whore for the law, and I think you get off on seeing other people's misery. I can't believe good men and women fought and died for people like you."

Lampkin grinned wide, showing his eyeteeth. "And yet, they did. You did your best, and here you stand, while I go home to my wife. Funny system, isn't it?" He turned and walked out into the waiting fresh air.

Bill looked away from the chipped walls and the painted footprints, willing himself to see Laura again, afternoon sun turning her hair to reddish-gold as his fingers were rolled in ink.

.

.

.

The hurt had become a familiar part of her. She even kept their picture up on her bookcase. She thought seeing it every evening would drive home that the past was past, that her feelings could be contained i inch frame. Instead, it served as a daily nudge in his direction.

She returned the Mustang to her father after she had banked enough paychecks to put a down payment on a newer car with better mileage. She needed something better on gas, she had told him. The Mustang…it just took too much.

It took too much out of her when she saw Bill's handiwork in every inch, and still couldn't fathom why he'd sought her out, then disappeared from her life again. It took up too much space in her memories. Even silent, under a tarp in her father's garage, she could almost hear the motor humming, encouraging her heart to mutiny against her good sense. Most trips to visit her Dad, she was able to push back with rational thought and her sense of pride.

The day came when the mutinous feelings won out.

She dropped hints about how long it had been since the car had been driven, the need to winterize the engine, and her father had finally asked her to go ahead and get the car serviced. She had been puzzled at his naming of several repair shops in town, suggesting that she might want to choose someone closer to her side of the city, or maybe one of the big chains. She had taken the cards he handed her, tossing them in the passenger seat next to her purse. No matter why he had acted so strangely after their lunch date, she couldn't imagine trusting anyone else with something so dear to her. She pointed the Mustang towards Bill's garage and let the horses run.

She wouldn't be pushy, she thought. She wasn't looking for an explanation…she was just doing her dad a favor, taking the old Mustang in for a tune-up. Change the oil, flush the radiator…_maybe ask what had happened, why he'd been so kind, eyes full of promises, and then disappear for months_. Hope and dread fluttered in her gut as she parked and headed for the office door with "Adama Automotive Repair" in white gilt-edged letters across the glass.

The woman behind the desk opened her iridescent eyelids slowly, the leather-vested man behind her continuing to massage her neck and shoulders. Laura got the slightly creepy feeling that she was interrupting something as the man smirked at her over the woman's head.

"Can I help you?" the blonde drawled.

"I was looking for Bill Adama. I—my father asked me to bring in his car."

The man in the leather vest feigned an innocent grin and kept his eyes on Laura as he ran an insolent finger under the lace neckline of the woman in the chair. She reached up to halt his touch as she arched her eyebrow, lips curved in a sardonic half-smile. "Your daddy tell you to ask for Bill by name?"

Laura bristled at the tone. "My father is particular about who works on his cars." More particular that Bill apparently was about hiring staff, she thought to herself.

"Well, sweetheart, Bill's not available, but I've got several mechanics here that are just as good." The man behind her chuckled and squeezed her shoulder.

"I can come back later. This doesn't have to be done today." Laura took in the inch of dark roots, the low-cut blouse, the intimate vibe between the woman and the guy with "Tom" on his name patch.

She hoped this woman wasn't actually doing the bookkeeping. Or any of the other things she'd imagined doing for Bill when their dreams were new and their future stretched out before them.

The woman got to her feet. A gold band was on the hand she rested on her swelling belly. "Unless you want to wait another six months, you should give Tom a try. He's not Bill"—a sly smile—"but he's not bad."

Laura's eyes dropped to the front of the desk and felt her world jitter beneath her feet. The thought that this couldn't be happening reverberated in her head as she quietly said, "I'll try another shop, thanks."

She turned before the woman behind the nameplate reading "Carolanne Adama" could see her tears.

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.

.

_Five months later:_

_Hands increasingly gnarled by arthritis hold out a plain envelope, photographs and cash peeking out the top._

_Younger hands take the envelope, tucking it away under a summer guard's shirt, the short sleeves revealing the faded outline of a Viper._

_A whisper in the dim that passes for night inside: "Hey, Husker. Something from a friend on the outside," before hushed footsteps move away from his cell._

_He runs his fingers over the edges of the photographs over and over, waiting patiently for sunrise._

_Waiting to see his son._


	18. Chapter 18 Shame at the Gates

"I didn't expect to see you here." He looked lean and cut, hair cropped short. He wasn't smiling.

"Dad's out of town. He asked me to…take care of this for him."

Laura's eyes flicked from him to the chain-link fence, the razor wire, the observation posts. She jumped at an amplified bark of, "Clear the gate!" as Bill Adama walked too slowly towards her, both pretending to themselves their last meeting, that treacherous lunch date, had never really happened

"Who's been taking care of your ride?" He looked warily at the green Mustang, attempting a thin smile.

"Different shops…I haven't found any that I really like."

_But she would have tried his place first. Gods knew what she'd walked in on._

He finally looked at her as she removed her grey jacket, showing tanned arms and a red tank top. She slid across the seat, leaning and stretching to unlock his door. The naked curve of her underarm was the most erotic sight he'd seen in eight months, twelve days.

"You're coming back to me."

Her eyes jerked up at the rumbling rusty voice and he groaned inside. "I'd like for you to start bringing your 'stang back to my shop, if you haven't found a…better mechanic."

She kept her eyes on the road. "It's not really my car anymore. I bought something new for myself a few months ago. But you taking care of this…I'll ask Dad about it. It's his car, after all."

"Laura, if I'd known your Dad was away, I'd have worked something out. You didn't have to do this."

She merged smoothly onto the highway, leaving the prison behind. "It's fine, Bill. I would've gotten here sooner, but work ran late."

She didn't ask why his wife hadn't come. He didn't offer any explanation. He scrambled for neutral words to fill the void.

"Yeah, I see you got that senior teaching position. You look…teachery."

She finally offered a weak smile. "Where am I taking you?"

"My grandma's place…you remember where she lives?"

"Sure. Not going straight home, then?" Her right hand downshifted harder than she'd meant to. "I would have thought you'd be anxious to get back to your family."

He closed his eyes as the wind rushed past his face. _She knows,_ he thought. _She knows about my marriage; she knows about my son. Or at least she thinks she does. _He wondered if her father had told her the rest of the story. He realized he hoped he hadn't. Neither of them needed any more false hope dangled in front of them. His ears burned as he thought about the lunch date and wondered if she'd had a chance to do the math, wondered if she had figured out he'd been married when he called that day.

He realized she was glancing over at him, clearly expecting a response. He took a deep breath and told the truth.

"Carolanne says she needs more time to get things ready…still adjusting to motherhood."

Shame and pain erected walls harder than steel and stone between them.

He wished he'd never met her.


	19. Chapter 19 One Wing in the Fire

The sullen young teenager sat in front of her desk, eye swelling shut and as stone-faced as his father.

"Is this gonna take long? I gotta get my little brother off the bus."

Laura straightened her new glasses and practiced her "daggers-over-the-rim" look. "It'll take as long as it needs to, young man. I've heard Kozart's side, now I want to hear yours."

"I tripped."

"Lee, knock it off, please. Two teachers saw you and Kozart talking, then yelling, then they saw you punch him."

He shrugged. "You know what happened, then."

She took her glasses off and rested them against the desk plaque that read "Laura Roslin, Principal". On days like this, she wished it bore another name and she was back in a classroom again.

"Shall I call your mother and ask her to come in to help you explain?"

_Please, by the Sacred Scrolls, don't make me call Carolanne Adama over this_, she silently begged. Her head was about to explode as it was. Lee Adama's look said that he found that idea as unpleasant as she did. His tough guy act dwindled a hair and he started to talk.

"Kozart was ragging me about my old man, Miss Roslin. Saying he was a no-good thug and a jailbird." For a minute, Lee looked like the six year old Bill had walked into school on his first day seven years ago, shy and wishing he was anywhere but here. He slowly pulled his bluster back around him like a worn coat.

"He doesn't know anything about my Dad."

"Is your father in prison again, Lee?"

The teen's head jerked at that. "What the heck do you mean, "again"?"

"Sorry, Lee…I misspoke. Is your father in prison?"

He looked down at his feet. "Yeah, he's upstate. Three counts of assault on a government official."

"Your father? That doesn't sound like him."

He tried a smirk that was too big for his face. "Maybe you don't know my old man as well as you think." His smirk slipped and he looked at her with ill-disguised curiosity. "My mom says you and him might've had a thing, back in the day."

"That's enough, Lee. I want you in my office first thing tomorrow. I'll let you know what your consequences are then."

He gave her a surprised look. "You're not going to suspend me?"

_He looks so young_, she thought. _How much of his life is his father going to miss?_

"I haven't decided yet. We'll talk in the morning."

The boy got up, his steps unusually slow to her door. She watched his lips tighten as he reached for the doorknob.

"Lee? Is there something else that you needed to talk about?"

"No…no ma'am. Just, if you had a thing for my Dad, now's your chance. My Mom filed divorce papers on him this week."

"Oh, Lee…I'm so sorry to hear that." She got up, wanting to reassure him that everything would be all right, then stopped, uncertain whether she had any right whatsoever to do that. His mother was a nightmare and his father was in prison…who was she to tell him anything would be all right? _Godsdamnit_, she thought. _Why wasn't Bill here for his kids?_

_._

_._

_._

"Why is he in prison instead of looking after his boys…that's what I want to know. I never thought he'd be so cavalier."

Mr. Roslin frowned at his eldest daughter. "Bill had bad luck, but I wouldn't say he was cavalier."

"Oh, Dad, you were always such a "Bill Adama" fan. How can you keep that up now? This is the second time he's been put in prison."

"Honey, did the boy tell you the details?"

She tapped her fork against her mother's best china that her father had started using for everyday.

"No, and I wasn't going to interrogate a thirteen-year old about that."

Her father crossed his knife and fork over the remains of his steak. "You realize what he got caught up in?"

She sliced off another bite of meat. "No, and I don't really—"

"It was the VA riots last year," her father interrupted.

She put her fork back down. "Oh, Gods…."

.

Hundreds of Cylon War veterans had marched on the Capitol to protest cuts in education and mental health benefits for the men and women who had served in the War. Money needed to go towards upgrading the defense department mainframes, the government said. A young and callous scientist, Dr. Gaius Baltar, offered the opinion that many of the still-suffering veterans had created their own problems by turning to booze and drugs and waved away suggestions that a lack of mental health care was behind the increased suicide rate among vets.

The discourse had been relatively civil until groups of suicide survivors began arriving to the march, escorted by a network of the more prominent motorcycle clubs on Caprica. Three pregnant sisters and daughters of suicided veterans had been making their way to the podium when Dr. Baltar had flippantly remarked that the vets who claimed Post Traumatic Stress Disorder just needed someone to slap them back to reality.

The Colonial Guard had to be called in to restore even a semblance of order after the crowd heard that.

.

"Bill was in that?"

"Bill was in the group escorting the pregnant family members. One of the Colonial Guard hit one of the women in the face while restraining her."

"Dad, that's horrible!"

"Apparently Bill thought so, too. It took three Guardsmen to take him down."

"So that's the "three charges of assault on a government official"?" Her eyes shone with outrage. "How could he have…wasn't there any defense?"

Her father refilled her wine glass with a shaking hand. "Romo Lampkin pulled out as his attorney at the last minute. Said it had become a conflict of interest for him to represent Bill. The Judge wouldn't wait for Bill to find a new attorney."

Laura cocked her head at her father, looking past his increased frailty to the spark in his fading green eyes. "Dad, why do you know so much about this?"

"I've known the Adama family a long time, honey."

She started clearing the dishes. _This would have been a good evening for her sisters to have stopped by,_ she thought. She loved it when her father started opening up, sharing things from the past. He didn't do it anywhere near often enough.

"You never told me, Dad…how did you know the Adama family?"

He looked at his plate a long minute, then up at his daughter.

"The first year I taught school, I skipped around the grades, like you did at first, assisting here, subbing there…." He sighed. "Before the tragedy, I taught the first William Adama."

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	20. Chapter 20 Outreach

"Is there a lot of paperwork involved?" Laura asked her father as they cleared the dishes.

"Not too bad. I'll put in a call, see how much can be handled by fax." The twinkle in his eyes told Laura this business would be accomplished sooner rather than later.

By Sunday, Mr. Roslin was calling his daughter with the good news. She had been put on Bill Adama's visiting list. She tried not to think what Bill's reaction would have been to seeing her request. She hoped the warden had offered some explanation that didn't sound too…_personal_. She tried to keep the mental picture of a sad-eyed blustering boy growing up too fast in her mind, but his father's deep blue eyes and rugged face kept slipping through as she tossed and turned her way to sleep.

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"Lee, I've given a lot of thought about how to handle your fighting."

The defiant glare was back, at sharp contrast to his slightly quivering chin. "Well, do what you gotta do, Miss Roslin."

She took in the unnatural redness of his left ear. He'd had a rough weekend, it looked like. _Time to put him out of his misery._

"I want you to write a thousand words on this theme." She handed him a notecard, printed in her neat teacher's hand: _My Father's in Prison and…._

He flicked it back across her desk, his eyes giving her a wounded look as he mumbled a "frak that!" under his breath. She calmly handed it back and continued.

"I want you to think about how kids and parents can feel like family under those circumstances, Lee. And it's not just meant to be a consequence. I'm interested in what I…what the school can do to help kids like you and your brother while a parent is incarcerated."

He slowly picked up the card and looked at it again. "I don't know what I'd write. I try not to think about it, just pretend he's on a long run somewhere." A few more bits of armor fell off his guarded look.

She took a deep breath, reminding herself that her superintendent had supported this idea.

"I got permission to take you and your brother to visit your Dad upstate on the teacher work day this week, if your mother says it's okay. I thought that might help you with your assignment."

Painful hope flared in the boy's eyes as he rolled the card into a tube, then flattened it again. "I could get to visit my Dad? I haven't seen"—he broke off as his eyes clouded again. "I don't know if my Mom's gonna go for that."

"Let's see, shall we? Is it okay if I call her?" Her hand hovered over her desk phone. She was dying to get the call over with, but Lee knew better than she did what he'd walk into when he got home this afternoon. His still-flushed ear warned her to let this boy have his say before she interfered with his home life.

"Yeah…maybe she wouldn't mind us being outa her hair for a few hours. Beats us hanging around the house getting on her nerves." He wouldn't meet her eyes then and her heart felt like it was being squeezed with a bony fist.

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The call went better than she expected. Carolanne's vitriol towards her soon-to-be ex-husband was no match for her undisguised happiness at having her sons out of the house on a day school wasn't in session. Laura wondered if she'd had any plans for them other than letting them hang around the house. If Carolanne had been surprised that Laura already had visiting paperwork in order, she didn't show it. An ugly thought ran through her mind, that maybe Carolanne hadn't even checked into putting herself and her (_their)_ boys on Bill's list.

Carolanne's voice had been half-thick with sleep when she had answered.

"If that's what you think would keep Lee from getting in more trouble, Mrs. Roslin—oops! Sorry, I keep forgetting you never married.…Yeah, I didn't think the boys should see their father behind bars, trying to talk to him through those windows and phones, but I'm sure you know best." Laura could hear the muffling of a hand being cupped over the receiver as a masculine snort sounded in the background.

"Yeah, they'll be ready. It's, what, about ninety minutes to the prison? If you could keep the boys until nine o'clock or so, that'd be great."

Laura bit her tongue at the veiled request to baby-sit Lee and Zak all day. "Thanks, Mrs. Adama. I think it'll be good for Lee."

"Yeah, I bet. Let him see what happens to losers. And it's Ms. Thorn, if you don't mind. I'm taking my maiden name back a little early. Got my reputation to think about."

Laura said a non-committal good-bye, ignoring the muffled guffaw in the background as she hung up the phone far more gently than she wanted.

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Lee and Zak displayed surprisingly good manners on the way to the prison. Nervous at first, especially Zak, the boys quickly became absorbed in the details of the vintage Mustang and the roar of the engine. Lee asked with almost heart-breaking shyness if he could look in the glove compartment for the manual. Once Laura had granted permission, he had pored over the details of the engine's workings, reading select passages out loud to his bored brother, who more interested in passing scenery than the faded book.

The ninety minutes went by too fast. The prison was looming in front of her before she had fully prepared her opening remarks, her justification of why she had come. This time last year, she had just been the school principal, mixed with a sprinkle of "fondly remembered but no longer relevant old love". She saw Bill a couple of times a year at school functions, and by tacit agreement, they never talked about his first stint in prison and that disastrous meeting the day of his release.

_Or the evening three years later..._

She had been drinking too much in a semi-seedy bar right on the dividing line between the last decent neighborhood in her part of Caprica City, and the neighborhoods where cops weren't welcomed unless they had ties with certain families. She'd wanted to get away from everyone who might recognize her, the anniversary of her mother's death hitting her harder than usual as she watched her father shut himself away in his study after a subdued family dinner. Her sisters had gone to their homes, but something made her ask through the closed study door if she could go for a drive before returning to her lonely apartment. She was sure she'd heard a "yes". That had been at least three drinks ago.

A hand that had dwarfed the glass of cranberry juice it held had appeared out of nowhere. "Is this seat taken?"

She had looked up into bright blue eyes, weathered wrinkles starting to surround them.

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**Ten years earlier…**

"Well, well…Bill Adama. Fancy meeting you here." A little voice in the back of her head told her she was slurring her words a bit but she ignored it. She had been getting good at ignoring those little warning voices.

He gave her an easy grin, white crooked teeth showing against tanned skin. He looked so much like that old picture she had never gotten around to taking down from her bookshelf, it made her heart hurt.

"I saw your ride outside, thought I'd see if it was you or your Dad slumming in here." He set the glass down and pulled out a chair.

"What's this?" She frowned at the glass and its bright red contents.

He motioned towards the empty glasses on the table. "Looked like it was time somebody switched to juice or water." He slid the glass towards her. "I hate doing bodywork on vintage models."

She snorted but took the glass and drank the tart juice. "Like I'd set foot in _Adama Automotive_ again. Your office manager doesn't care much for me, and the feeling is mutual, believe me."

Bill looked away, rubbing his ring absently. "Carolanne doesn't spend much time at the shop anymore. New prospect, a kid named Helo is in the front office now. Better fit for the work."

Laura felt her alcohol buzz starting to slip away as she sipped on a fresh glass of water Bill had summoned with a nod at the waitress. Thoughts of a past birth announcement in the Caprican Times slipped into her thoughts unbidden. "I hear congratulations are in order."

He flushed but couldn't keep proud smile off his face. "Zachary Adama. He's three months old today." Apparently taking her quirked eyebrows as an invitation, he pulled out his wallet crammed with pictures of a chubby baby and a sturdy toddler.

She ran a finger over the pictures, charmed that the rough biker would have so many shots of his children with him. She noticed all were of the boys…not a single shot of their mother was in the stack. She frowned, then made a show of counting on her fingers.

"They're beautiful, Bill. And by the way…happy anniversary." She gave him a lop-sided smirk.

"What do you…oh, nine plus three, right?"

She fluttered her fingers at him. "Why are you really here, Bill? Bar-hopping seems an odd way of celebrating the anniversary of your son's conception."

He did some subtle signal with his eyes that brought the waitress back with a tall draft beer and two more glasses of ice water. "Like I said, I saw your Dad's baby and thought I'd stop."

"Bullshit. That's like me believing I'm really here only because the anniversary of Mom's passing got me down."

His face softened. "I'm sorry, Laura. She was a wonderful woman. How's your Dad doing?"

"He still hurts on days like today. It's hard on him." She looked at the thick-fingered hand now resting on her wrist, then up at his face. His sympathy was starting to break through her carefully constructed shell. She braced herself: time to bring out the big guns.

"I don't think _your wife_ would appreciate you touching another woman, buying her drinks and being so friendly, Bill. Shouldn't you be home, celebrating"—she paused, muzzily realizing the alcohol hadn't left her system enough for her to be her usual prudent self, and not caring—"that which brought that adorable child into being?" She was unreasonably proud of the drunken elegance of that remark, and that thought started a giggling fit that left her pink-faced and hiccupping.

"Here, swallow nine times, real fast." He handed her the water.

Her giggles worsened through the hiccups. "That's what _he_ said!" Her giggles slowed as she sipped and watched his face turn dark. She swallowed fast, the hiccupping finally stopping along with the laughter. An uncomfortable silence settled over the table.

"I'm sorry, Bill. I'm not usually…I've been going through a—a bad break-up. It's made me a little crazy."

He got that scary air around him that reminded her of how much he'd changed. "He do anything to you?"

She sighed. "No…just wasn't right for me. We weren't right for each other. I just…don't have much luck in that department, it seems."

"Tell me about it." He looked grimmer than he should have, for a man with a growing family.

"Bill?" The years fell away and he was the young warrior again, looking a little lost in post-war peace, and she was the girl who'd had so much faith and trust in him.

At first she thought he'd stay silent, that old stoicism coming over him as it had the day she'd picked him up from prison. His hand moved from her arm to the back of her hand, drawing Tauron symbols with his index finger.

"I've had to be away a lot for work. Side jobs I've contracted. Carolanne…." He wouldn't meet her eyes. Laura flashed back to a cocksure tough in club colors, mouth curled in a permanent smirk.

"Carolanne..?" she prompted.

"One of my guys went nomad after she got pregnant with Zak. Like he took it personal or something."

"Was it a guy named Tom?" She regretted the words as soon as they were out of her mouth. The last thing she needed to be doing was starting problems in Bill's life at this stage.

She expected anger, maybe even rage, and watched his jawline, looking for telltale clenching. She was not expecting the slight easing of his shoulders, his clear-eyed look at her.

"What makes you say that? On second thought, I probably don't want to know." He shrugged. "Carolanne…she can't help what she is. What she isn't. She's been kind of a mess since he left."

Laura tilted her head, examining the man in front of her. "Don't you resent the frak out of that?"

He gave her a rueful grin. "Maybe I know how she feels."

Her head was fully clear as he walked her to her (_their)_ car. She knew exactly what she was doing when she let him slide behind the wheel and handed him the keys. And when he raised his eyebrows in question at the graveled entrance to the lake park a few miles down the road, she nodded with full knowledge of what was going to happen, her lips already parting in anticipation.

Panties on the floorboard beside the discarded condom wrapper, seat pushed all the way back, she welcomed him into her core as she gave him her heart a final time. Half make-up sex after their last bitter parting, half a last farewell to old lost love. As the sweat dried on their sticky skin, their well of words went dry.

She took the keys without asking, stuffing her panties down deep into her purse and pulling down the skirt of her summer dress. They didn't speak on the way back to his bike, where he'd parked it at the dark edge of the bar's lot. Bill rubbed his thumb over the back of her hand, dropping a kiss between her knuckles. She wondered if he was worried at all that Carolanne would smell another woman's scent on him…wondered if he cared.

_Maybe not_, she thought, as he bent through her window to kiss her thoroughly before he left. Her fingers had stayed on her lips for a long time after he put his helmet on and roared off into the night.

She started the mental process of shifting her self-image to that of a woman capable of frakking a married man, turning that notion over and over as she felt her personal paradigm shift off-center. She wondered if it would stay that way; wondered if she'd just crossed a personal Rubicon into strange territory that she'd now have to make her own. She looked after the disappearing bike, red taillights finally blinking out of sight.

She put the convertible's ragtop down under the flickering parking lot lights. Turning the key, she headed back to her father's house, hoping the night air would blast the sex scents out of the car before she parked it in her father's garage and headed back to her sterile apartment. For having done something so bad, she felt surprisingly good.

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"I have sensitive skin," she answered Lee as he asked why her face had gotten so red.

The Mustang joined the line of cars waiting to get through the guarded gates. She had the paperwork in hand as they inched forward, hoping that she had made the right call.


	21. Chapter 21 Visiting Day

The parking lot was cracked and broken in places, straggly dandelions pushing up through the asphalt. Laura didn't bother looking for shade. It was a barren area, hemmed in by chain-link fences topped with razor wire, spaces marked off by faded white lines. Zak bounced in his seat, craning his neck as he tried to look in all directions at once.

"Is that my Dad?"

Laura's eyes followed his pointing finger towards a man in a light blue shirt and navy pants, standing at some distance beyond the fence. The man was dark-haired, but she could tell it wasn't Bill.

"I don't think so, Zak." She wanted to hug him, ask him if he had a picture of his father that he could look at whenever he wanted. She settled for patting his shoulder as she helped him out of the back seat and giving him her best reassuring smile.

"Dad's not that tall, Zak." Lee was doing his best to act nonchalant, too absorbed in the faded Mustang manual to be excited. Laura noted the pallor of the tight skin over his cheekbones.

"Lee? You okay?"

He stuck the manual back in the glove compartment, snapped his seatbelt open and grabbed the door handle. "Yeah—yes, ma'am. I'm good." He shoved his hands in his pockets and started towards the low block building in front of them.

"Lee, wait…do you have a pocketknife or anything? And I need your student IDs." Laura popped her trunk open as she talked, shoving her pocketbook in next to the spare tire. She accepted the small knives that both boys produced out of their pockets and put them next to her bag. Slipping her keys, driver's license and the student IDs into her pocket, she walked the boys to the reinforced door and hit the buzzer. After a static-filled exchange with the guard on the other end of the intercom, they were buzzed in, a blast of cool smoke-scented air hitting them as they entered.

She handed their ID cards to the guard as she took the clipboard out of his hand, trying to look like this wasn't her first time in a prison. She wrote all their names inside the printed lines, her pen faltering as she got to the "relationship" boxes. Penning "son" beside Lee's name, then Zak's, she tapped her pen against the clipboard for a second as she looked at her neatly inked "Laura Roslin". Sighing, she slowly wrote "family friend", thinking how inaccurate that felt.

She and the boys were escorted through a series of electronically locked doors before coming to the final barrier between them and the family visiting area…and Bill. She wished for a second that she still had her pocketbook so she could run a comb through her hair a final time, touch up her lipstick before walking through the door. She shook her head at her foolishness: this visit was for the boys, not her.

"Dad!" Zak yelled as he saw Bill stand up by a picnic table in the fenced open area. Lee was practically humming with tension as Bill walked towards them, Zak meeting him halfway as the boy ran into his father's arms. Laura and Lee stood and watched as Bill picked his younger son up in a bear hug, lifting his sneakered feet off the ground as he and Zak grinned until their eyes squeezed shut.

Putting Zak down, Bill came over to his other two visitors with a more tentative step.

"Hi, son." He stood in front of Lee, arms outstretched.

Lee stepped slowly into his father's embrace, lifting his arms to his father's shoulders. Laura thought it looked like the boy was trying to keep some distance between them and hoped she had made the right decision.

"Hey, Dad." Lee stepped out of his father's arms and stuck his hands back in his pockets.

"Hi, Bill." She smiled her professional smile she used for parents as she looked at the tanned, fit man in prison blues.

"Hi, Laura. Thanks for bringing the boys." His smile was easy and familiar, like they were meeting at the river park. _Like they were anywhere but in a prison._

"I was glad to do it. And glad for the good behavior at school while we waited on the paperwork." She smiled at Lee, who finally allowed himself a small smile.

"C'mon, boys. Got something for you." He put an arm around each boy and shepherded them towards the picnic table.

Laura looked around the yard as she followed, taking in the other families sitting at other tables: a man held a baby in his lap, bottle in an awkward hand as he fed his son, a tired-looking woman sitting across from him smiling through dried tear tracks. Another man gently held an old man's hands with both of his as he spoke in earnest low tones. The mix of pained love and confinement was almost suffocating.

"Look, Miss Roslin!" Zak said as she sat at the table. "We got Vipers!"

Both boys were examining wooden models of Vipers carefully carved to perfect scale and sized to fit in one hand. Lee looked at his in silence as he ran a finger down the painted white and red body. Laura took the model Zak held, admiring the careful grooves and lines, the tiny black-painted cockpit in front. Both had "Husker" inked onto the side in tiny block script. Lee and Zak stepped away from the table, Zak flying his Viper through the air with Lee looking on indulgently, finally joining his little brother in pretend air battles.

"Those are amazing."

"Thanks." He smiled, bashful and a little proud." I've been making all kinds of models in the woodshop. The prison sells our woodwork in a gallery in town. They let me make a couple for the boys."

She looked down at his hands, marked with nicks and old healed cuts. She reached out towards him then stopped, unsure of her place here. Bill chuckled in his old familiar rumble and covered her hand with his. "It's okay, Laura. Hand-holding's allowed."

She let herself enjoy his firm grip for a second, then slowly pulled her hand out of his. "I don't think it's a good idea in front of the boys. I don't want to confuse them."

He sighed and folded his hands. "They're already confused. I don't think you could do anything that could make it worse. Their mother—"

"I know. Lee told me about the divorce." She thought she should probably add an "I'm sorry" to that, but couldn't bring herself to say the words.

"It's for the best. The boys don't need to see her catting around while she's still married to me, getting the idea that's what marriage is."

Something about his remark stung her heart. "You sound pretty pious, considering…everything."

He flushed and looked down at the table. "That was different."

Zak crashed into his father's side, turning the giggling assault into a snuggle. "What's different, Daddy?"

He looked over his son's head into somber green eyes. "Nothing, son. Nothing's different." He glanced up at Lee, standing over his little brother. "So, how do you like those Vipers?"

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Laura slid to the end of the bench and looked out over the yard again, away from the Adamas. She wished she had something to read, something to write on, any prop to distract her from this sweet disastrous man…distract her from the fleeting fantasies that these were _their_ boys, that they were a family having lunch in their backyard.

_I should've come home more. I should've tried harder._

Bill's soft gruff questions about school and pets and boys' adventures faded into the background, the rhythmic tones of his voice punctuated by the boys' chatter lulling her as she sat in shade-dappled sun.

_She had called him the day after he came to her school. They had started seeing each other again. Her father co-signed a business loan for the shop…the wedding was small…_she sat with her chin propped on her folded hands, spinning impossible fantasies of unremarkable domestic life.

A sharp "That new, Dad?" brought her out of her reverie. Laura realized she'd been staring at Bill's forearms, thick-muscled and dark against the edge of the light blue rolled-up sleeves. She could still feel their strength around her. _After all these years…_

Lee was poking a dark outline that was barely visible under the edge of Bill's left sleeve. Laura watched as Bill slid the sleeve up a few inches.

"Yeah. I, uh…a guy in here does these. It's kind of against the rules…we both lost some yard time for it."

A surprisingly ornate "**L**" had been tattooed in blue-black ink into the skin of his upper arm, the bottom loop almost to his elbow. It was patchy in spots, that grayish-blue tone that screamed "prison tattoo".

"It doesn't look as nice as your Viper," Zak announced, frowning.

Laura finally looked at Bill's eyes then, the dark clear blue holding her gaze, almost daring her to look away.

"I'll get it re-done when I get out, Zak." His eyes never let hers go as he talked. "I'll either get it inked professionally, make it look right…or I'll get something over it. Turn it into something else." His eyes blazed for a second. "I'll decide after I'm free…see what seems right."

Tears pricked at her eyes as Lee hovered his forefinger over the ink. "That's for me, right, Dad?"

"Your name starts with an "L", doesn't it?"

Zak pouted and spun his Viper on the wooden table. "What about me? Where's my 'nitial?"

Laura blinked a few times to clear her eyes as Bill explained he'd get a "Z" after he got out. Lee looked at the letter and then shot a curious look in Laura's direction.

"Her name starts with an "L", too," he said.

"Yeah, it does."

Father and son studied each other, unspoken words passing between them. Finally, Lee nodded. "I guess that works okay."

Bill dropped a kiss on the top of Lee's head before the boy could pull away, face reddening. "Dad! Gods, I'm not a baby."

"Neither of you are babies, Lee…Zak. I need for both of you to be good for your mother, for your teachers, your club-uncles until I get out." He gave a solemn look to each boy in turn. "And mind Miss Roslin. This is a nice thing she did, bringing you up here."

"Yeah, but now I gotta write a paper."

Laura smiled at the boy's frown. "You'll live, Lee, I promise."

A shadow fell over the table. "Five more minutes, folks." The visit guard nodded at Bill. "Nice family, Husker," he said in a low voice.

"Thanks." The two men looked at each other with mutual respect, and Laura suspected there was a Viper tattoo under the guard's tan sleeve. The guard walked around to Bill's side of the table.

"Don't forget you've got contact privileges." He winked at Laura as he walked back to the entrance.

"What's that mean, Daddy?"

"That means I can do hugs and goodbye kisses." He was smiling now, his eyes crinkling at the corners as he looked lovingly at Zak, then Lee. The smile became serious when he looked at Laura. "For anybody who wants one," he added.

Each boy took a hug and kiss on the cheek with all the grace expected of boys their age, then stepped back. A smirk tugged at Lee's lips as he looked at Laura. "Next!"

"Lee, that's—"

Laura was cut off as Bill pulled her into a quick friendly hug. "Thanks again for bringing the boys. Seeing you…it feels good, even like this."

She could feel his heavy stare, like he was carving her face into his memory as deliberately as he'd carved the model Vipers. The yard, the world fell away as he touched her chin with his fingers, leaning in to give her a sweet, chaste kiss on her lips. Her hand rose to his chest, feeling his heartbeat quicken under her fingers.

When she smiled at him after they moved apart, she felt like she was eighteen again. His smile said the same: for an instant they were back to where they'd started, innocent, uncomplicated.

"Time, people," the visit guard said with finality.

"I gave permission for you to write me…you know, for the boys," she reminded him as she began walking towards the heavy door into the building, Lee and Zak by her side.

"Count on it, Laura."

"I will, Bill."

The door shut, making her feel like the prisoner as Bill, standing in the afternoon sun, disappeared from her sight. Three sets of snuffles echoed in the bare hallway as the guard guided them towards the outer office.

"Your father's a model inmate, boys," he said kindly. "Four guys in here got their high school equivalency papers because of your Dad's tutoring. Hel—heck of a model ship-builder, too."

Laura's back stiffened as Lee stopped in his tracks, then started walking again, muttering "must be nice to be them" under his breath.

The rest of the afternoon passed in a swirl of ice cream, driving, pizza and board games at her apartment until it was time for Laura to take the boys back to their mother. She was in their drive and had her hand on the door latch when Lee cleared his throat.

"You don't have to walk us in, Miss Roslin. You look pretty tired. We're okay from here."

She felt like a coward as she nodded gratefully. Bill's light kiss was still tattooed on her lips too strongly for her to be comfortable facing Carolanne tonight. She covered her relief with a strict "I expect that paper the first day we're back at school, young man."

He grinned, unfazed. "Yes, ma'am." His grin faded as he looked towards his house.

Zak sprinted to the door, Lee following with his characteristic slouch. Laura waited until she saw the door open, a flash of blond hair visible in the porch light. She slipped the car into gear and pulled away from the curb.

It wasn't until she parked the car in front of her apartment that she saw the figure on the seat beside her in the streetlight's glow. A miniature Viper lay in the seat where Lee had been, its perfection marred by a broken-off wing. She dug around for the broken piece, finding it shoved under the seat. She tried to remember if she had wood glue in her toolbox.

_It wouldn't be like new,_ she thought, _but it was still worth saving._


	22. Chapter 22 Arrangements

Laura wished Mark Sechrest didn't have such a large mirror on the wall of his office. She examined the wan features reflected back at her. The red-rimmed eyes, the chewed lips, the pallor stark against red hair all testified to what she'd been through over the past twenty-four hours. He was speaking in soothing professional tones about the complexities of multiple arrangements…everybody having to put their grief aside to coordinate logistics…he glanced at the empty chair by her side from time to time, as if he wished she had a husband, a partner, a best friend to help her through this.

She watched the woman in the mirror with distracted feelings of sympathy. She looked too alone for what she had to do.

"Miss Roslin? Can I get you some water? Coffee?"

"No. I'd like to get this done."

"Certainly." He leaned slightly to check the tissue box on the side table next to her. He seemed relieved it was full.

Laura imagined he went through lots of tissues in a week, a month…the realization that the chair she sat in was probably occupied daily with a shell-shocked man or woman reeling from loss made her body clench. _So much death. _She wondered if this had been the same office she and her father and sisters had been in when they made her mother's arrangements. It seemed bigger than it had been when the four of them had filled the guest chairs.

"Now, Cheryl's husband will be making her arrangements, is that right?"

"Yes."

The funeral director cleared his throat before starting again. "Your father had a pre-need contract with us, as you know. He left very specific instructions."

"I…good. That's good." She nodded once.

"Would you like to see the casket your father chose?"

_No. I don't want to see his casket, or hear details about the construction of his vault, or pick a color for his frakking satin pillow._

"I suppose…yes, I should."

He rose and straightened his black suit jacket. "We have several caskets in the Athena Room that might be appropriate for Sandra."

"Appropriate." Her mouth barely moved as she spoke. _Will it have a lighted mirror, a travel wine set, a loop of family stories set into the lid?_

"Appropriate" and "casket for Sandra" was an obscene combination of words, the wrongness of it hitting her in her stomach, her throat. Somewhere nearby, in another branch of Sechrest Funeral Homes, her brother-in-law was in a similar room, trying to match finishes and brass handles and satin interiors to Cheryl and their unborn, now neverborn, baby.

Mr. Sechrest touched her elbow to guide her from his office to the long hall leading to the display area. Acidic tears seemed to gather in the back of her throat as she looked down the hall and saw double doors opening on to a showroom of open caskets. She jerked away, her tight control slipping. "Where's the ladies' room?"

He led her across the hall, opening the door for her as she bolted into the bathroom. She barely heard the stall door bang shut behind her as she bent and retched, gathering back her hair in one hand as she supported her shaking body with the other. Each time she thought she was done, the image of the officers at her apartment door floated in front of her eyes, twisting her inside out again.

Finally finishing, she flushed and went to the sink to wash her face and rinse her mouth. She stared at the back of the restroom door as she leaned against the cool metal side of the stall.

_A minute. I just need a minute. A time-out…then I can go back out there and…_

Her stomach quaked again and she closed her eyes, trying to focus on the words she could barely hear over the hum of the air conditioning. She idly wondered how long it was _appropriate_ for her to hide in the bathroom before getting back to the business of burying her family.

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Mark Sechrest had been doing this for years, like his father before him. There was always something that had to come out, he thought. Sometimes it was tears, sometimes it was throwing up, and sometimes it was a vase smashed against a bathroom counter in despair and anger. He checked his watch and stepped into his secretary's office.

"Check on Miss Roslin in a couple of minutes, would you? I'm going to review her father's file again. That poor woman needs somebody with her."

"Sure, Mr. Sechrest." The middle-aged woman finished her spreadsheet entry and turned away from her keyboard towards her boss. "Have you started calling the pall bearers on Mr. Roslin's list?"

"No, but that's a good place to start. I can't get her to identify any support person for herself, but maybe one of them can."

He went back in his office and opened the Roslin file again. The handwritten list Mr. Roslin had prepared was near the front of the folder. Mark smiled to himself. _Meticulous old guy_. He'd even put the names in alphabetical order, with contact numbers written neatly by each name.

"Wish me luck," he called to his secretary as she passed his door on her way to the ladies' room.

He'd start at the top, work his way down, he thought.

_William Adama._

He reached for his phone and began dialing.

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Bill kept one hand in his pocket, his other hand tight in Laura's grip as her fingers flexed and dug into his. He'd been out the door before Sechrest had stopped talking, throwing the phone to Helo to hang up as he headed for his bike. His hands still had grease in the creases, though he'd wiped the worst of it off on his jeans at stoplights. Laura had backed away from the hug he'd tried to give her, then grabbed his hands like they were lifelines. He had nodded at her withdrawal, trying to tell her without words that he understood her need to build walls around herself today.

He could help her dismantle the walls when this was over. Right now, she needed their protection against the mushy soft chords playing in the background, the air freshener and carnation scent heavy in the air.

"Bill?"

She was looking at him, red-eyed and expectant. He focused on the swatches arrayed on the polished light oak of the casket.

"How about the peach? Looks kinda like the blouse she was wearing in that family portrait your Dad had in his office."

"It does, doesn't it?" Her tone softened as her hand eased its grip. "She did like that color."

Bill drew out her thoughts with careful words, guiding her through the process of all the choices that needed to be made. A part of him was amazed that they could be so comfortable with each other after so little contact over the past three years.

He looked at her lips out of the corner of his eye. He could still feel their smooth warmth after all this time, that goodbye kiss that had surprised them both. He hadn't seen her again after an asshole Gemenese judge had agreed with Carolanne that the boys shouldn't see their father in prison.

His last year inside, "Laura Roslin" had been a signature at the bottom of a handful of professional, encouraging letters that were screened by guards before coming to his hands. He sometimes wondered if she kept a small stack of his return notes in a desk drawer, maybe shoved to the back by more important correspondence. The "thank yous" for keeping him updated on the boys, the progress he was making on getting a degree in History by mail, his latest model-building, the counting down the days until he was free…the careful avoidance of making plans, of assuming too much.

He had kept every one of her letters, shoving them into his duffle bag as he left his cell for the last time. They'd gone into his personal safe in his room at the club, sealed away from the raucous celebration that shut down _Adama Automotive Repair_ for two days straight.

He hadn't looked at them again since the day he had glanced down at some old newspaper under a drip pan and seen her, smiling and glorious, next to a tall, trim guy with a 20-cubit haircut and a carefully veneered grin. _District Attorney Adar and Assistant School Superintendent Roslin attend Caprica City fundraiser for "Arts in Schools",_ the caption had read.

He'd pushed the letters to the back of his safe after work that night, focusing his energy on the club and his boys, and told himself to quit chasing after pipe dreams. It was their shared history and old promises to her father that had him flying to the funeral home, he told himself, not any hopes of re-kindling old flames.

By his side, Laura had grown steadier, calmer as she went over the list of options and arrangements. Her hand had finally loosened enough on his so he could run a soothing thumb over her palm. He noticed the lack of rings on her fingers and wondered what had ever become of that guy in the paper.

Laura's fingers left his grip to take up a pen as she started signing off on the pages of contracts and agreements. Bill stuck his hand back in his pocket and looked around the showroom. His eyes fell on the streamlined gray model that had been Mr. Roslin's choice—almost a military casket, with a few more carvings around the corners to give it a civilian flare. His wind-weathered eyes stung as he realized there would be no Colonial flag draped over Mr. Roslin's coffin, no final rifle salute fired over him. The wrongness of that made his chest tight.

"That's everything, Miss Roslin. If you could have the clothes back here by noon, and a recent picture of both, that'd be great." Mr. Sechrest took the papers and handed them off to his secretary. "And the makeup your sister usually wore, if you want. Whatever you feel she would have preferred."

"Of course." Her tone was cool and steady now. Bill could tell that Assistant Superintendent Roslin had taken the forefront, letting Laura retreat to gather herself together and prepare for the next tasks. He reached for her hand again, then paused as he heard a quavering "Laura?" coming from the hallway.

She clasped her hands in front of her as she blinked tears out of her glistening green eyes. "Bill, that's Cheryl's…my brother-in-law. I need to—"

"I know, Laura. You go do what you need to do." For a second he folded his big callused hands over hers and held her eyes. "I'm right here if you need me."

His hold tightened as one tear slid down her cheek and her breath shuddered. "I know," she echoed.

He pulled her towards him, their hands still together, and kissed her temple as gently as a priest's benediction. He wiped her tear with his thumb and returned her watery smile. She whispered a breathy "Thank you" as she turned away to comfort the grieving new widower.

Mr. Roslin would be proud of her, he thought, as he watched her walk away.

.

.

The next days blurred together as Laura went as she was guided, sitting or standing according to the direction of others. She had barely caught her breath from standing at her father and Sandra's gravesides when it was time to return to the chapel for Cheryl's service. Her anchor had been a broad back and squared shoulders in navy wool, a tanned hand gripping one of the steel handles of her father's final bed as she followed him one last time through the chapel doors.

She could still feel his presence from the back of the packed chapel, one of a number of men lined up along the back of the crowd, standing straight and silent. Knowing he was there felt like an old warm coat of her father's being wrapped around her shoulders, giving her the strength to comfort her brother-in-law as he wept beside her.

The sun was heading towards the horizon when Cheryl was laid to rest. The mourners began to say their last words of useless comfort and straggle out of the cemetery as staff began the tasks of finishing the burials.

"You look exhausted."

She turned at the rich rumble and gave Bill a half-smile. "I am." She looked over his snowy white dress shirt, his carefully pressed suit. "I don't think I've ever seen you in a suit before."

"You haven't. This is the first time I've worn it. I bought it when your Dad asked me to do this a few years ago."

She shook her head. "You and my Dad…"

"He was a good friend, Laura. To a lot of people."

"I'd like for us to talk about that someday."

Her head jerked towards a low rumbling coming from a distance. It seemed to be getting closer.

"What's that noise?"

He looked in the direction of the noise. "That's…some people who wanted to do a last service for your father."

Rows of black motorcycles roared into view and pulled into the now-deserted cemetery parking lot. Rough men in leather and denim dismounted, walking towards the funeral director as a few more cars and pick-ups pulled up carrying older men, some missing a limb, others still carrying the thousand-yard stare. Over half wore a piece of Colonial Fleet uniform: a jacket, a cap, an old dress sash.

"We didn't want to disrupt the services." Bill explained. "The director said it would be okay for them to finish the graves."

She watched the younger men take up shovels left by groundskeeper's shed. A man in red and brown raiment read from a scroll as they pulled the artificial grass back and started to work.

"That priest…he's from the House of Mars, isn't he?" She found herself whispering her question to Bill as they watched from a distance.

"Yeah. He's Tauron…he's a friend of the club."

He tucked her hand around his crooked forearm, covering her chilled fingers. "Let's get you home."

.

.

He had dreamed of this…walking into her apartment, knowing that there were no barriers to their being together. No bars, no Carolanne in the way, no one to judge them unsuitable for each other. He looked around the cluttered comfortable room and wondered if this space would ever become part of his world.

She'd squeezed his hand as she went to her room to change out of her funeral clothes. He thought of the soft curves that would be revealed as she undressed and flushed red as he remembered their last frantic coupling in her father's Mustang. So many years ago and yet it seemed so clear…

He was staring at a familiar object on her bookshelf when he heard her bare feet whispering against the carpet behind him. He turned and his breath caught for a second—she looked almost like the teenager she'd once been, in faded jeans and a man's shirt falling past her thighs. The day had added to the fine lines at her eyes and around her mouth, but she was still the girl who part of him had never stopped thinking of as "his".

"What're you doing with this?" he asked with a smile as he nodded towards the bookshelf.

She ran a finger down the mended wing of the model Viper. "It took some damage on the ride back from the…from seeing you. I tried to put it back together."

"I bet this was Lee's."

"How did you know?"

He smiled. "Lee was pretty mad at me back then. Mad at a lot of things."

He watched her straighten up, going from one area of the living room to another with no plan or purpose, just shifting a few books, some condolence cards from one spot to another. He could feel the heaviness in the air, like the stillness before a thunderstorm…the thickness that silences the birds' singing and sends wildlife scurrying for cover. He accepted the glass of wine she offered him from a half-full bottle on the kitchen bar, then watched as she drained the bottle into her own glass. She was developing a thousand-yard stare of her own, he thought as he sat beside her on the couch.

She pulled her bare feet up under her and leaned back, taking a deep swallow of the light red wine as she looked past his shoulder.

"How are the boys?"

"Well, Lee's riding now, and Zak's been begging to start…School is good, although I don't think they'll ever have a teacher they like as much as they liked you…."

Her eyes had closed as she listened. He thought he could go on talking for hours if it meant she could keep that calm expression on her face, the corners of her mouth barely turned up as he rambled about his sons, his mundane descriptions of everyday life. Her shoulders had started to loosen, and she turned her cheek against the afghan folded over the back of the couch. He was just thinking that she was handling everything almost frighteningly well when he saw the wine's surface start to quiver against her glass as her hand began shaking.

"Laura?"

Her face was pressed into the woven wool afghan, eyes screwed tight and nostrils flaring as she inhaled increasingly desperate breaths. He took the glass out of her limp fingers and moved closer. As he brought his face closer to hers, he got the scent of a light floral perfume, still clinging to the afghan. _Not anything she would have worn_…he watched her throat work and the first tears started to slip through her closed eyelids. _More like something one of her.… Oh. _He raised his hand to her cheek.

"Laura…"

"They were right here." He voice was thick with tears and disbelieving horror. "They were right here, Sharon on one side, Cheryl on the other, me in the middle." Her eyes were open now, begging him to make this make sense. "How could they be right here, not even a week ago? I had dinner with Daddy last Sunday...how can they be here one minute and then just…_gone_?"

Laura was gulping air now, the thin threads of shock that had been a veil between her and her feelings snapping one by one as she shook her head against the wrongness of everything. Bill could feel sympathetic tears welling up as he remembered that gutted feeling of watching a fellow Viper pilot singing through space one minute, then watching their light on the DRADIS blink out. He remembered a faint mix of scented soap and gunmetal on a thin pillow in his rack that had come and gone for weeks before finally fading.

Swallowing hard, he moved closer to pull her into his arms as her body began to shudder in waves of wracking sobs, the strangled words of denial, of impossible wanting slipping out between the gasps. He ran his broad hands over her back over and over as she moaned into his chest, begging for her family back. They were in the thick of the storm and he was helpless to shelter her. He stroked her hair and pulled her tighter into his chest, and hoped he could keep her from drowning.


	23. OWR 23 Stolen Illusions

"Do you want to file charges, Miss Roslin?"

Laura looked thoughtfully at the young officer, chewing on the inside of her cheek as her mind churned, trying to make sense of all this.

"I don't know…I really need to go over there and see what's missing."

The officer held his cap in his hands, eyes squinted against the light spilling from her apartment. "Not necessarily, Ma'am. Regardless of what was taken, it's still a breaking and entering. We can file other charges later."

"I should go on over." She pulled her robe tighter around her. "I can be dressed in a minute. Could you follow me to my father's house?" She glanced at the wall clock again. 2:30 am. This is what she got for putting off going through her Dad's house, she thought.

"No problem, Miss Roslin."

She went back inside as the officer's radio began squawking in his car.

Face washed, hair combed and jeans and a clean shirt slung on, she locked up her apartment and went over to the officer. "Should I follow you, or you me?"

He held up a hand as he held the radio between shoulder and chin, scribbling down notes. She waited in the cool night air as he signed off.

"Good news, Ma'am. One of your Dad's neighbors was up when the alarm went off. They got most of the license plate number off the bike. Downtown's running it now."

_The bike?_

"Great, officer." Her keys jangled as she walked to her car. "After you, please."

.

.

The house still smelled like her father, she thought. The old-fashioned cologne, the pipe smoke, the scent of dry papers and book bindings. A cursory look around assured her that the big items, the television, the stereo were still in place. There was none of the damage she would have expected from a robbery.

"Miss Roslin? We got a hit on the plate. Looks like it's registered to Leland Adama."

She looked up, surprise clear in her eyes. "Lee Adama broke into my Dad's house? That—that doesn't make any sense."

The officer looked down at his clipboard. "He's in with a bad crowd…could be this was some kind of initiation." He looked up at her. "You know his father runs the Tauron Outlaws."

She paused with one hand on the door to her father's office. Her voice was carefully neutral as she responded almost by reflex.

"His father runs an automotive repair shop." Her father's voice rang in her memory. "And he's in a club for Harley enthusiasts."

She could feel the officer's solicitousness ebbing away as she talked. She felt herself dropping in importance in his eyes as she admitted knowing the Adamas.

"Tell you what, Miss Roslin. We've cleared the house. Check your Dad's office for theft, and if you find anything gone and want to file charges, give me a call." He handed her a business card and flipped the papers back down on his clipboard.

"Sure. Thanks," she said as she watched him walk down the hall. She tried to imagine Lee Adama rifling through her Dad's belongings, looking for valuables to steal. No matter what the officer had thought, she couldn't see it. Drawing a deep breath, she pushed the door open.

_Lee, my ass_, she thought. Bill's distinctive scent of citrus and evergreen, male musk, and a hint of engine oil had hit her as soon as she had seated herself at her father's desk. She fumbled around the underside of the desk, fingers finally touching the catch that opened a hidden drawer build into the side.

As soon as she turned the key to her father's hidden drawer, she could tell by the arrangement of items that something bulky had been removed. She closed her eyes for a minute and tried to remember an evening when she had tiptoed in to surprise her father with an extra good-night kiss. She had caught a glimpse of a gray lockbox before he had slammed the drawer shut and given her a hug. She could almost see it in the empty space surrounded by pens and notepads.

She quietly shut the drawer and stood up to get to the wall safe above his desk. Spinning the dial, she bit her bottom lip. She should have gotten everything out before the funeral, she thought. She held her breath as she pulled the door open.

Twenty minutes later, she pushed the safe door shut and spun the lock. She'd been surprised at the sleeves of high-denomination cubits stacked six deep against one side, the two small chamois bags of precious gemstones next to them. But the rest…. She fingered the envelope that was sealed tight, an inked line of Tauron symbols written across the seal.

The house was quiet as a temple, the only sound the ticking of the mantel clock across the room. Her eyes fell on a gleaming letter opener next to a leather pen holder. Her hand was halfway to it when she heard the soft shutting of the front door, followed by booted footsteps in the hall. Laura shoved the envelope into the top desk drawer and grabbed the phone. She had hit the first two digits of the emergency number when she heard a familiar voice from the doorway.

"Laura?"

Her hand slowly dropped to the desk as she hung up the phone. Bill looked exhausted, she thought, and a pang of concern hit her right in the heart. His black sweater and dark jeans blended into the darkness of the unlit hallway, the dim light from the office highlighting the circles under his eyes and the deepening wrinkles in his cheeks. He looked like he'd aged years in the days since the funeral. His blue eyes, usually so clear and sharp, seemed bleary and bloodshot.

"What's going on, Bill? Why'd you break into Dad's house?" Without thinking, she moved her fingers until they touched the letter opener.

He glanced at her hand and his mouth quirked in an almost-smile. "I didn't break in." He held up a set of keys.

"That's not what the alarm company said. Guess Dad forgot to give you the codes." She raised a questioning eyebrow.

He sighed. "He didn't want to give me the codes over the phone. He'd asked me to come by in person, but then the accident…" He stepped into the room, freezing as she reached for the phone again.

"Stay right there while you talk, Bill. I mean it. I thought we…this doesn't make any Godsdamn sense. I can't believe you and Lee went through Dad's house…_my_ house." _All you had to do was ask. Why didn't you just ask? _Her confusion was quickly building into anger.

He held his hands up in surrender. "Lee was never in the house. He was just here for backup if I needed it."

She snorted. "What a great Dad. No wonder the officer looked at me like biker trash when I said I knew you and Lee. I stood up for you, said that you, of all people, would never rob the Roslin home."

His hands dropped to his sides. "I wouldn't. I was just getting some things that belonged to me…that your Dad would have wanted me to have."

"Really? He wanted you to have that lockbox that's been in his secret drawer for years?"

Bill's mouth had drawn into a grim line. "As a matter of fact, he did. And there's some things of mine in his safe, too."

She watched him cautiously move further into the room until he reached her grandfather's barrel-back chair by the bookshelves and sat down at the edge of the seat.

Laura felt her stomach turn over as she pictured Bill, in the dark, maybe with a flashlight, rummaging through her father's safe.

"You didn't have enough time to steal anything but the box?"

She watched his chest rise and fall as he took a deep breath. "There's a lot here that you don't understand."

"That's an understatement." Her throat tightened. "You could have asked for anything in here, Bill. Anything. Why didn't you just come to me and ask? I thought"—she turned away—"I thought we still knew each other well enough for that." Her face flamed as she remembered sobbing into his chest, looking to him for comfort, feeling so safe with him. She wondered if he'd been planning this even then. "Right now, I don't feel like I know you at all."

He leaned forward in the chair. "I know this is a shock, Laura. I'll explain everything as soon as I can, but right now…I just need an envelope that your Dad left for me. It should have my name on it somewhere written in Old Tauron."

The rage started boiling up in her chest. She had just wanted to mourn her family, start picking up the pieces (_and see what was left between them_, part of her mind whispered). The last thing she needed was some cloak-and-dagger mystery dumped into her lap, with an additional helping of reputation damage.

"Just an envelope, Bill? Not the money, or the jewels…just an envelope?"

He didn't seem surprised as she described the contents of the safe. "We can talk about that other stuff later. I just need the envelope tonight."

"Well, I can't read Old Tauron, so I think I should check the contents for signs that they belong to you."

She pulled out the envelope and sliced it open even as Bill was on his feet moving towards her. "Laura, don't!"

She rose to her feet as she watched the contents spill out over her father's desk, barely hearing the "Frak!" muttered by Bill as he stood at her side.

"Frak me," she whispered, as she looked at the Colonial Identity cards, stamped with official seals over pictures of Bill, Lee, Zak, and men she had seen at the garage. None of the names under the pictures were familiar. Blood roared in her ears, blocking out whatever Bill was trying to say as she shuffled through the pile of cards. He grabbed at her hand, but not before she flipped over the last card. _I wonder where he got that picture, _she thought, as she looked at her own face, neatly centered over a name she'd never heard of.

.

.

Her wariness had given way to her need to understand what was going on, he figured, as he poured them both a drink from her father's liquor cabinet.

Bright green ambrosia sloshed in her glass as she paced back and forth. Bill stood by the mantel, nursing his own drink as he listened to her trying to put together what she had seen tonight, every word dripping ice. He'd bitten his tongue almost in two trying to hold back the truth. He watched the darkness start to fade through the window and realized he needed to go before the neighborhood came alive.

"Was that it? Did Dad know you were into hard-core crime, and figured you'd drag me down with you? Is that why he thought I needed fake papers? One day, we'd be, what…living on the lam or something?"

He took a long drink, trying to figure out how much to tell her. He'd been trying to do that for a long time, he thought as he swallowed.

"Your father knew that there were some strange things going on within the Defense Department. And yeah, he thought the day might come when we'd have to…be out of harm's way."

That stopped her pacing. "The Defense Department? He's a university professor…_was_ a university professor. He didn't have anything to do with the Defense Department!"

"Laura, remember when your father was so active in veteran's affairs, years ago?"

"Of course."

"And he was so successful at lobbying for educational benefits for vets?"

She looked at him with suddenly uncertain eyes. "My father was an eloquent man when it came to his passion for education and fair treatment for Colonial vets."

He put his drink down on the mantel and moved a few steps closer. "He was that. But it helped that he knew people in the right places."

She frowned. "You mean some of the students he helped initially? I know a few went back into the military."

He hated lying to her, but as soon as the truth started to tug at him, he saw again the pile of papers with big red "TOP SECRET" stamps on every page. They had looked so benign in the small lockbox. Hard to believe within those pages was very possibly the shape of things to come. He mentally bit his tongue again.

"Yeah, something like that."

She gave him a measured look over the rim of her glass. "You'd say just about anything right now to smooth this over, wouldn't you? You want to hear my best guess?"

He braced himself. He got the feeling this wasn't going to be pretty. "Sure."

"I think he never looked past "Bill Adama, veteran of the Cylon War". He felt so bad about what your family had been through…oh, don't look so surprised. He told me once about your father's first wife and your half-sister getting blown up in a terrorist attack, and then your half-brother getting killed." She took a long drink of ambrosia.

"He got so invested in you and your family saga that he couldn't believe you could be a bad guy. Every time you went to prison, every time rumors were going around that the Tauron Outlaws were running guns and drugs off-world, he'd tell me Bill Adama isn't like that. I didn't have all the facts. You were taking the fall for somebody else." She slammed her glass down, drumming her nails against the side.

He knew how I felt about you," she continued quietly.

He was so close, he thought. If she started to cry, if she came into his arms, he'd start talking. He ached to defend himself, defend her father against her imagination, against the bits of evidence that looked so damning. His chest felt hot as he watched her, slightly bent over her crossed arms as if she was in pain down to the bone. _So close…._

She straightened up to her full height, shoulders back, looking every inch her father's daughter. She looked directly at him, and it was as though something had cracked inside, letting what they had had together trickle away.

"And he knew that whatever you were doing, the life you're in…he knew you wouldn't stop." Tears began welling up now, and all he could do was stand by helplessly and watch.

"I guess my father didn't have as much faith in me and my decisions as I thought. Judging by this," she waved a hand towards the envelope, refilled and resealed, "he figured I'd love you enough to throw away my life and live like a frakking Outlaw."

Two tears made their way down her cheeks. "Thanks, Bill. Thanks for showing me my father didn't know me at all. And I sure as hell didn't know him." She handed him the envelope with a surprisingly steady hand.

Bill turned towards the window again at the sound of birdsong starting the day. The sun was minutes from coming up and he needed to get off the street. One last thing, he told himself. One last piece of the lying puzzle, and that would be that. Godsdamnit, if this was only about him…but it wasn't.

"Laura, the paper..." He felt his face turn hot and red. Even this made him a liar. The last thing out of the envelope had been a list of the safe contents with encrypted locations and sellers' names. The first deal had today's date penned beside it in Mr. Roslin's shaky handwriting. He'd be cleaning out the safe after all, just like the criminal she was picturing him to be.

"Oh, right. The list of your other property. Gods know I don't want to be charged with possession of stolen goods."

She turned to spin the lock on the safe, trying three times before she got the combination right. One day, he told himself. One day he'll tell her the truth, make things right. For himself and for her father.

"I'll be right back. Don't steal anything while I'm gone," she said bitterly.

He stared at the open safe, at the cubits and gems that would be exchanged for weapons to add to their stores. Mr. Roslin's last contribution, he thought. _His last act of patriotism._

"Here." She walked back in and shoved a flowered pillowcase into his hand. "Get your stolen…_crap _out of my father's house."

He moved to the safe and started placing the money and gems into the pillowcase, feeling more like a thief with every soft clink. He could hear her irregular breathing behind him, sounding like she was trying to hold back more tears.

He tied the pillowcase into a small bundle, finally looking up to meet her eyes. She turned away.

"Lock the door behind you. I'll tell the police nothing was missing and I don't want to pursue the break-in further."

"Thanks." For a second, the calmness of her tone gave him a flicker of hope. She didn't sound so angry anymore. Maybe….

"Bill?" She wrapped her arms around herself again, backing away.

"I—I appreciate your…whatever we had in the past, and your help with the funerals." She rubbed her arms like she was feeling a chill. "But please don't ever contact me again. Whatever we had…I'm done."

He searched her face, memorizing the shape, the plane of her cheekbones, the deep green of her eyes. He tried to store up enough of Laura to last forever, tried to look past the pain he saw in her face.

"I understand." He sighed and saw all the versions of Laura he had loved flash before his eyes.

"Good-bye, Laura."

He walked past her, averting his eyes to keep from breaking. His boots echoed through the dead-feeling hallway as he glanced here and there at the pictures, the furnishings he'd never see again. Outside, passing the restored Mustang under its tarp, he wondered who she would find to take care of it now.

He set the bundle on his bike as he fastened his helmet. He raised the pillowcase-wrapped valuables to his face, letting the faint jasmine and ginger scents wash over him for a couple of seconds before stuffing it into his saddlebag. The sun was just starting to peek over the horizon as he drove out of the Roslin driveway for the last time.


	24. Chapter 24 Something New

.

Laura was still on bereavement leave, but that didn't stop her from getting up a few minutes before sunrise each day. She'd be back in her office on Monday…no point in getting used to an extra half-hour of sleep on a weekday. She had just started the coffee when her doorbell rang. She thought about trying to find her shoes from wherever she'd kicked them off, then shrugged. She was doing enough by stripping off her nightgown and tugging on jeans and a sweatshirt as soon as she got out of bed. There had been too many unexpected people at her door lately to get comfortable relaxing in a gown and bathrobe anymore.

She looked through the peephole at the white-uniformed man on her doorstep. He was tall, with close-cropped dark hair, a friendly mouth and slightly nervous eyes, his hands occupied by something just out of her line of sight. He didn't look like someone who would be bringing her more bad news, she decided, as she started unlocking the door until only the chain lock was left.

"Yes?"

"Miss Roslin?"

"I'm Laura Roslin." She looked him up and down, wondering what was in the bulky package.

"I need to speak to you about your father, Ma'am. If I could come in…?"

_Godsdamnit, Daddy, would you please just frakking stop?_

"Certainly."

She closed the door and unhooked the chain, then opened the door again. It crossed her mind that she should ask for more information, for identification, then realized she had lost faith in ID papers. She realized she didn't really care anymore as she held the door wide and ushered him in.

"Miss Roslin, I have something for you."

She looked at his uniform again. He looked like just a commercial pilot, no insignia of law enforcement or military.

"Do you have any…oh, hell…do you just have a name?"

He looked at her uncertainly, and she was vaguely conscious that her response had been rude. He focused on the package in his hands, unwrapping the triangular shape.

"My name isn't important, Ma'am. I was just asked to give you this."

The man's light brown eyes moved away from her as he seemed to be preparing to give a memorized speech. He finished unwrapping the package and she recognized the wooden triangular box, the glass showing the blue, white and gold of the Colonial flag.

He cleared his throat.

"This flag is presented with the gratitude of the Twelve Colonies and the Colonial Fleet in appreciation for your loved one's honorable and faithful service."

She kept her hands at her sides. "I don't understand. My father wasn't in the military."

"Yes, Ma'am." He lost some of his rigidity. "It would be best if you didn't display this openly…but it was felt that you should have some token of the gratitude many of us feel for your father's service."

She stood there, trying to process what she was hearing, hoping for some clarity even as she doubted she'd get it. "Can I know what kind of service he was supposed to have done?"

He reached down and held her hand for a second. He's shaking almost as much as I am, she thought, as he pulled her hand towards the box.

"I can't give you that information, Ma'am. And believe me, I am so sorry about that."

He has kind eyes, she thought, as wooden edges pressed into her hand. The weight of the box suddenly increased as he let go, and she grabbed the corner of the box with her other hand.

She looked down at the folded flag, barely aware he had turned towards the door.

"Wait a minute! You're telling me things that are turning everything I know upside down. Can you at least tell me who the frak you are?" She hated hearing her voice escalating, taking on that screechy note that her mother had tried to discourage.

"I'm so sorry, Miss Roslin." He stepped out the door and closed it behind him.

The flag was so tightly folded, it kept its shape even after the frame was broken in three places and the glass was shattered in a halo around the fabric. She wondered later, after she had stopped crying and was sweeping the glass shards into a dustpan, if the man had been out of earshot when the glass case hit the door. She hoped so. He'd seemed decent enough, like he really regretted the things he couldn't say.

One glass of wine down, Laura carefully lifted the heavy triangle and took it to her bedroom, shoving it under her bed. There had been no nameplate, no engraving on the box. She could almost pretend that this had nothing to do with her father, if her mind would just loosen its grasp a little on all the hints and lies that kept whirling around. She felt like a child who had been told not to think about an elephant, and now she had elephants on the brain. She had a mental picture of an elephant in a giant hamster cage and giggled while she wondered, on some level, if she were starting to lose her mind.

Halfway through the second glass of wine, she went to her closet and began rummaging through her dressy clutch purse, the one she carried for special occasions. _Call my office_, he had said, as he handed the embossed card to her. _I'll be starting my campaign soon …and the office of Mayor is just the beginning._

_I don't know anything about politics_, she had told him.

_You don't strike me as someone afraid of trying something new_.

She carried the card over to the phone, finishing the wine and shaking a long cigarette out of a new pack. She struck a match and lit up, pulling a crystal ashtray in front of her. She drew a deep lungful of smoke and slowly blew it out of her nostrils, staring at the card while she punched in the numbers.

"Richard Adar's office. How may I direct your call?"

She tapped the ash off the end of her cigarette. Daddy always hated seeing me smoke, she thought idly.

"Mr. Adar, please. Tell him it's Laura Roslin. I'm calling about his campaign."

_Time for something new._

_._


	25. Chapter 25 Time, Trouble

.

Thanks to Richard Adar, Laura had finally run out of time.

She'd run out of time to think about her family until the grief knocked her winding, out of time to push and pull at snippets of facts and hints about her father's secrets. Run out of time to wonder what had happened to that sweet young soldier who had stayed on her mind for twenty-five years, to wonder if she ever knew him at all.

All she had time for these days was to get through the daily grind of local school board machinations and then switch gears to work on Richard's next campaign. Most of the time, she was okay with her life these days. She certainly wouldn't say she was unhappy.

Not exactly.

Her brother-in-law's remarriage stung a little. She had said all the right things: she hoped he'd be happy, it had been over a year, Cheryl would have wanted him to move on…neither said a word about her not being invited to the wedding. She guessed it would have been awkward for his new bride. Laura shut her mental door on him as soon as she got up from the table at Cheryl's favorite restaurant, the last time she figured they'd meet for her sister's birthday and to celebrate her life.

There hadn't been any mysterious callers since the young man who had brought her the flag of the Twelve Colonies, thank the Gods. She'd replaced the glass and glued the frame into shape, carefully sealing the flag inside again. Then she'd put it at the back of her closet shelf, the one she needed a step-ladder to reach. Out of sight, out of mind, she told herself.

She started going to some of the local Caprica City art shows on the weekend. She liked the young artists, the ones who remembered when the new art programs had started in the schools. As the months passed and the seasons changed, her finds of water-color seascapes and detailed wildflowers in forests took the place of family pictures.

One or two formal family portraits stayed on her bookshelf, but the candid ones, the ones that showed her, her father, and Bill as they really were…she had found herself staring at these for far too long, trying to decide what was real and what was artifice. The day she found herself looking at a snapshot of her mother, wondering how much she had known, she gathered the pictures and boxed them up. They kept the folded flag company.

Richard was considerate, she thought. Seeing how she threw herself into his on-going campaigns, he insisted on having his lawn maintenance guy go to her Dad's house every other week to keep the lawn cut and the hedges trimmed. It was hard to sell a house with an overgrown yard, he had told her. She wondered if he realized she had taken it off the market after a few months. Like the pictures and flag, she didn't want to see it, but she wasn't quite ready to get rid of it just yet.

Looking in the mirror as she changed from her school superintendent suit to the deep green sheath dress she'd picked for that evening's fundraiser, she decided that he had noticed she wasn't trying to sell the house, and was okay with that. Richard stayed incredibly busy, too, but he didn't miss much. He certainly hadn't missed her association with Bill Adama. He'd made that clear midway through his campaign for Mayor. She remembered that conversation word for word, even now.

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"Don't worry about it, Laura. It just came up when your references were checked for the superintendent position."

"That was years ago, Richard. I don't understand why that would even be an issue."

"It's not a problem, really. It wouldn't have come up at all except the previous superintendent was singing your praises for volunteering to take the Adama boys to see their Dad in prison. She thought it was very kind of you to do that."

She had toyed with her pasta at the little restaurant that had suddenly seemed too small and cramped as she briefly described Lee's struggles as a boy.

"And, in the interests of full disclosure, Bill Adama worked on my father's car over the years, as well." She had hoped the candle's flickering light gave her reddening cheeks some camouflage.

"Well, that doesn't sound too bad. Your father always had a soft spot for veterans. I remember a couple of letters, character references, coming across my desk in the DA's office when a vet's hearing was coming up." He had chuckled. "I always thought he was a little misguided, but his heart seemed to be in the right place."

She'd raised her glass of red wine to her lips then, hiding the sad smile that threatened to emerge. "Yeah, my Dad was always kind of naïve."

Plates cleared, she'd looked at her watch, figuring she could go back to campaign headquarters, get in another hour of voter research before calling it a night.

Richard had laughed. "Do you ever want to do anything besides work, Laura? I know I could sure use some down time." His hand had barely started grazing hers when she pulled it away.

"I like to stay busy, Richard. It keeps me out of trouble."

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She fastened her earrings and pulled her hair back into a silver and bronze clip low on her neck. She would have liked to have left her hair loose, but thought it might be a little jarring to attendees who had gotten used to seeing her as the superintendent of schools for Caprica City. Soon, she thought, she'd consider the position Richard was offering her at the Ministry of Education.

It would mean working more closely with him, she knew…and she wasn't sure how she felt about that. He wasn't unattractive at all…which could become a problem, if she didn't stay focused on juggling her job and his campaign management. And then there was his marriage….She had been down that path before, but that had been different, the last bloom of a first love. There wouldn't be any love this time. She wouldn't allow it. She knew the warning signs...she wouldn't let things get out of control.

Laura slicked on some lipstick and checked herself in the mirror one last time, running through a mental checklist of the potential donors she'd need to make sure she talked to, the points she wanted to cover with each of them.

She hoped staying busy would continue to keep her out of trouble, she thought, as she stepped out into the evening air and walked to the waiting car.

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,

Richard Adar brushed his teeth again, and wondered if it was his imagination that made him feel like he still had her taste on his lips. He grinned to his reflection. He hadn't dared to even try to envision this scene back when he'd started flirting with her over dinner all those months ago.

Richard still remembered that conversation, trying to feel her out about her old connections over pasta and red wine. He had felt himself falling for her a little as she talked about staying out of trouble, even though she had gently shut him down.

He smiled and opened the bathroom door for second, watching her doze. She was all wrapped up in the sheets, curled in on herself like she was trying to make her body as small as possible. Richard quietly went about the business of dressing again, closing the door of the tiny hotel bathroom and tying his tie in front of the mirror.

She hadn't lied about liking to stay busy. She'd managed the superintendent's job as well as worked on his campaign up until he'd decided to run for higher office. Laura had agreed, then, to take a position at the Ministry of Education that would allow her to work more closely with him. Her zeal towards education reform could only help his standing with the academic community and with parents of school-aged children throughout the Colonies, he'd figured.

He'd been a bit surprised at how quickly she'd gotten a handle on meshing political realties with educational policy. He'd started to look to her instead of the Secretary of Education when the Teachers' Union brought their issues to his office. Richard smiled to himself. That hadn't been the only surprise.

They had been in his office, wound up tight over whether the new school system budget would pass as presented or if the Caprican legislature would send it back for more proposed cuts. The late-night news that the budget would be adopted as presented had made them practically giddy with relief.

Midway through their celebratory hug, he realized that they were alone in his office, and the usually stand-offish Laura Roslin was not pulling back from him this time. He had risked touching her further down her back, down to her waist. When he turned and brushed his lips over her cheek, sill keeping things in the realm of colleagues getting a bit carried away, she had turned as well, lips meeting and opening under his. As her fingers had flexed and gripped the back of his neck, he realized they were stepping into new territory. And once his fingers were under her ice blue blouse and skimming under the lace of her bra, there'd been no turning back.

Later, as Laura had slipped her shoes back on and finished buttoning her cuffs, she had told him this really shouldn't happen again. And it didn't…until he came home one too many times to find his wife out drinking with her friends, sneering at his latest political victory when he called her. His house had been cold and empty that night, and Laura had been calm and sympathetic when he had phoned and asked if he could come over.

Maybe she'd been cold and empty herself that night, he reflected. They didn't talk about it much. Not that night, and not the nights that followed. They talked more about their work together, making plans for their people, for the next campaign, never for themselves.

_I like to stay busy. It keeps me out of trouble._

He tugged his collar straight and then reached for his comb. The public had gotten used to seeing them together at Caprica City functions a couple of times a month. Even his wife had stopped commenting on the time he and Laura spent together. And it helped that Laura didn't seem to need tokens of his affection, or make a big deal about spending holidays and birthdays together.

He walked back into the bedroom and stood over her, admiring the curve of her back, the sweep of her sleep-tangled hair against the pillow. For just a moment, he wondered what it would be like to see her lost to emotion: laughing until her sides hurt, sobbing over her lost loved ones, or completely, selfishly losing herself in out-of-control passion. Richard shook his head as he watched her pull further into herself in her sleep. He couldn't imagine Laura Roslin out of control over anything. He bent down and kissed her cheek, then walked quietly to the door and let himself out.

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	26. Chapter 26 Patch Party

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The air near the ceiling was thick with cigar smoke and the sweet-musty smell of Aerilonian weed, a slowly turning ceiling fan lazily cutting through the haze. A low chatter filled the room until the gavel fell. Then the club meeting room "church" became as quiet as the real thing.

"Old business?" Bill put the gavel down and looked around the carved table.

"Helo," Lee said from his seat at his father's left. The Vice President shuffled through the notes in front of him. "He's been a prospect for one year, everybody says he's followed the rules, done everything we've asked him to do, shown initiative but always cleared his plans with one of the Club officers. I move we patch him in."

"Dues paid up?" Bill looked at Galen and nodded at the ledger in front of him.

"Never missed once, Bill," the Treasurer said.

"I second Lee's motion," Saul said, from his Sergeant at Arms' position to Bill's right.

"All in favor?"

The room filled with "Ayes" and the gavel fell.

"Saul, tell your old lady to set up a patch party Friday."

Everyone at the table grinned. Ellen Tigh could be counted on to put together a wild party with plenty of talent from her staff of exotic dancers. Bill's was the only smile that seemed a bit forced.

"New business?"

No one spoke.

"Okay," he continued. "A couple of items…we patch in Helo, we lose him in the front office of the shop. One of our brothers in the Delphi chapter has a nephew he's asked us to consider as a prospect. Guy's a genius with organization and computers, including hacking."

Saul snorted. "Sounds like a bad-ass, all right. Zeus, we patching in MBAs now?"

"You volunteering to appraise real estate deals and form shell corporations, Saul?" Bill hushed the snickers in the room with a look, then turned back to his Sergeant at Arms.

"That what we're coming to? Frakking businessmen at the table?" Saul grumbled to himself as he ground out his cigar.

"Saul, we need to build the legit side of the club. And a hacker in-house could be useful." Lee leaned back in his chair and glanced at his father with a raised eyebrow.

Bill looked at his VP, glad for his son's support. "I've already told his uncle he'll need to bring in his own hardened computer, keep it separate from our stand-alones. He can ride, but I think his main use to the club will be in other ways."

Saul shrugged. "Frak…fine with me to bring him in for a meet. This joker got a name?"

Bill nodded at the men around the table. "I'm taking that as a second. Guy's name is Felix Gaeta. Ayes?"

The vote was unanimous. Bill's gavel came down with a loud "So Say We All" and the men began to rise from their seats and file out of the room.

"Dad? Can I talk to you for a minute?"

"Son, if it's club business, you shoulda brought it up in church."

Lee fidgeted with the beer bottle in front of him. "I'm not sure where it falls yet. There's a nomad Tauron Outlaw in town, says he left Caprica in good standing with the club." Lee's jaw was slightly jutted as he planted his arms flat on the table and met his father's eyes.

Bill felt his stomach clench. Back then, he hadn't had the control over the club that he had now. He should have cast the asshole out of the Outlaws for good after he found out about Carolanne. In the end, though, he'd had to admit that Tom Zarek had betrayed him personally, not the Outlaws. He'd told himself that he could live with Zarek wearing the Tauron Outlaw colors as long as he didn't have to see him.

"Your mother put you up to this, Lee?"

"Frak, no. They haven't been together for years." Lee leaned forward as he pressed his case. "Zarek's got some business he'd bring with him. And he's a demolitions guy. We need a replacement for Flashbang."

Bill frowned at his son. "Is Zarek still running Stimdust for Phalen? You know how I feel about that."

"He's keeping it out of Caprica City, Dad. It's mostly runs between Saggitaron and Tauron."

_If we don't do it, somebody else will._ "Bring this to the table next week, see what the others say. If he comes back in, he can wear the colors, he can speak his piece at the table…but he's not getting a vote." He trimmed the end of a cigar he'd picked from the box on the table, taking his time lighting it as Lee waited. After the first drag of sweet smoke, he blew it out of the side of his mouth and continued.

"You in touch with Zarek?"

Lee was having trouble meeting his eyes. "We talk once in a while."

Looking up at the ceiling, Bill debated with himself on the wisdom of going further, then gave in to the hollow echoes of past anger.

"You know he was banging your mother while I was inside, right? Both times, if my memory's correct."

Redness starting coloring Lee's neck. "At least he was _around._ At least he'd try to get her calmed down when she went off on one of her rages, _Dad._" Bill could see his son's own rage start to pull his words tight and sharp.

What's one more deal with the devil, he told himself. "You're the VP, Lee. Bring this to the table…I won't vote against it." He got up, putting the gavel on its stand. "Get with Saul's old lady about Helo's patch party. There should be something on the menu besides liquor and strippers." He walked to the door separating the hallowed meeting room from the raucous bar lounge that formed the middle area of the clubhouse, Lee following in his wake.

Bill slammed the door behind them and looked out over the common room. Two of his Outlaws were flirting with a couple of blonde hang-arounds in shorts and tank tops, the girls keeping the men's glasses filled and their laps warm.

Lee seemed to sense that his father's tension had dropped a bit. "You know, Dad, if you had your own old lady, you wouldn't have to worry about Ellen being so…_Ellen_ about club functions."

"Don't start, Lee." He motioned for one of the girls to bring him a cold beer. "And this party…talk to Zak about coming. The members need to start seeing him as more than just your little brother."

Lee caught the girl's eye and gestured for her to make it two. "You sure that's a good idea, Dad? He's never been as interested in club business as you and me."

Bill took the icy mug and nodded his thanks at the girl as she went back to the bar.

"He's an Adama. He'll do fine."

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Bill looked out at the parking lot filling up with bikes. He picked out the visitors from other clubs: a couple of Sons of Vulcan, three Poseidon's Riders from Picon…strong clubs with strong ties of alliance. Days like this, he felt like everything he'd given up was almost worth it.

The sun was going down as he watched from the bulletproof window of the club meeting room. Long shadows were cast across the pavement; hard-looking men, some with their women, walked between the dark and the light areas as they talked. He let out a breath he didn't realize he'd been holding as his younger son roared up, an unfamiliar guy following him into the lot on an almost over-customized bike. The guy pulled to a showy skidding stop next to Zak, mouth wide with laughter, and unstrapped the minimal helmet.

Bill snorted in surprise. The "guy" was a girl. A girl with short blond hair and a badass swagger as she walked up to Zak, pulling off her gloves and playfully punching his arm. He chuckled as he watched. Maybe Zak had more Outlaw in him than he thought.

Four hours, several gallons of whiskey, beer, and a few impromptu pole dances by Ellen's girls later, Bill motioned Saul into the church and pulled out a couple of chairs at the long table. The quiet after the heavy reinforced door swung shut was almost jolting. He waited until Saul lit up one of his rank cigars.

"Helo's a good pick, Bill. I like his old lady, too…the little brunette from Troy, right? Looks like a keeper."

Bill nodded. "Always changes men a little once they're wearing their cut for real. Helo's gonna be a real asset to the club."

Saul smiled in agreement, then looked at the glowing end of his cigar for a second, all expression leaving his face. "You seen that asshole Zarek yet?"

"No. He's keeping his distance, hitting on the girls young enough to be his kid, Galen told me."

"That's not all, Bill. He's hanging around Zak and that delinquent he brought."

"Delinquent? The blonde with her own bike?"

"Frak, _yes_, delinquent! Been doing shots of rotgut like it was water, got on the pole at least once on a dare, and so far, been in two fistfights. I hope Zak knows what he's doing…that one's crazy."

"Saul…man, maybe you're just getting too frakking old to have a good time."

Saul snorted, taking a long pull on his cigar and blowing it out slowly. He looked up at the Colonial flag on the wall and smirked. "That's not what Ellen says."

Bill rolled his eyes. "At least not to your face." He leaned back in his chair. "So, you meet the new prospect yet?"

"That Felix kid? Yeah, he poured me a couple shots, broke up the fight with Zak's girl and one of the strippers when I told him to. Seems okay…he can take a punch without backing down or going nutso."

Grinding out his spent cigar, Saul gave Bill a sidelong glance. "Say, you ever see that girl you used to be sweet on? Roslin's oldest kid?"

Bill straightened in his chair, then got to his feet, looking down at his SAA. "No, not in a long time. How come?"

Saul rose as well. "I heard some Colonial Secret Service assholes asking around some of the businesses in town…did she come around here, who she associated with when she was in the neighborhood…stuff like that."

"Probably getting some kind of security clearance. She was pretty active in Adar's campaigns…maybe he's got a position for her in his cabinet or something."

Saul started snickering. "Yeah, I bet he's got a position for her, if she looks anything like she used to—" His snickering was choked off as Bill grabbed the fraying collar of his shirt.

"Don't you ever disrespect Laura Roslin in front of me again, Saul. She's doing good things with her life, and as long as I'm president, you consider her a friend of the club. Even if we never lay eyes on her again." He shook his head as he let go of his friend's shirt.

"Gods, Bill…she dumped you out of her life like last week's garbage! She's part of the Godsdamn government now… you're gonna lay hands on a brother over a frakking woman who's written you off?"

He adjusted his collar, rubbing at his neck. "This kinda shit is why you need an old lady."

Bill shrugged. "I've got everything I need. The boys, the club…what it is that we do...I'm good."

"Well, you're the Pres...you know best, I guess." He looked down at his hands. "You don't think it'll be a problem, though…a security detail sniffing around you because of her?"

Bill thought of the hands any report would have to pass through in the course of vetting Laura for security clearance. One pair of hands in that chain of command still had battle scars received as Bill's young, scared gunny a lifetime ago.

"No. I don't think it'll be a problem at all." He slung an arm around Saul's shoulders. "C'mon, brother, let's re-join the party."

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	27. Chapter 27 Post-Campaign Promises

The lights were hot and bright in the convention center hall. Tired supporters with colored ribbons and confident placards were now renewed, bursting with energy as the final counts were electronically tallied. The race was done: Richard Adar was the next President-elect.

Laura's cheeks were aching from smiling all night. It had been a good campaign, she thought, and she felt a flash of pride that she'd made it to the finish line, even with her work load increasing as the Secretary of Education had edged closer and closer to retirement. For months, her nights had been filled with catch-up work from her (and her boss's) office, occasionally spiced with unexpected but welcome hours with Richard.

She had gotten used to looking out hotel windows afterwards and seeing two cars pull away; one with Richard and his driver, one for his security detail. Sometimes she would look at the faces of the black-suited men who hovered near his office, trying to see if there would be a spark of recognition, of judgment. There never was, and she eventually stopped looking, letting them recede into the background of her and Richard's outside relationship.

She stood at a respectable distance as President-elect Adar hugged his wife at the podium before launching into his acceptance speech. She surreptitiously checked her watch. Forty-five seconds of thanking "the love of my life, my biggest supporter", one and a half minutes of thanking the voters, two minutes of reiterating his immediate promises and plans after being sworn in as the new President of the Twelve Colonies, one minute of bipartisan reconciliation, and finally, fifteen seconds of thanks to all those who had worked tirelessly on his campaign.

She pushed the grin a little wider as she began to applaud along with the crowd. Her real thanks would come later, she thought. She wondered about herself sometimes, why it never really bothered her to see Richard and his wife in public, looking so close and happy these days. The thought ran through her mind that maybe she was secretly part Cylon and didn't know it, like the late-night horror stories she and her roommates would tell in her dorm room when they were all a little stoned and giggly. That thought made her want to break into giggles right there on the stage, as she bit the inside of her cheek and tried to get herself under control. She glanced towards the forest of microphones and cameras from the news agencies and wondered if Bill was watching television tonight.

She suddenly didn't feel like giggling anymore.

.

.

Three days later, she and Richard were finally able to steal some time alone. The days had been a flurry of transitional planning sessions and meetings as Richard prepared to become the most powerful man in the Colonies. Laura found new chunks of time during her day as the campaign apparatus was dismantled. _Free time_, she thought wryly. _What's that going to be like? _She examined Richard's face and saw that some of the harsh lines in his face had softened, the dark circles under his eyes a bit lighter than they had been a week earlier.

"You look ten years younger, Richard. Winning agrees with you." She smiled as she went into his arms and let herself relax into his kiss as his hand cupped her shoulder.

"Thanks, hon. I think we're all trying to catch up on our rest." He tugged her down to the couch in his private side office. "You ready?" He looked like he was about to burst with a happy surprise, but there was a hint of worry-wrinkles at the corners of his eyes.

"For what?" she said with a smile, her eyes trying to read the concern in his.

"Your appointment, Madam Secretary." He handed her the large manila envelope with a flourish.

She began opening the metal clasp, hands shaking slightly. "Thank you, Mr. President."

He put an arm around her as they sat side by side, reading the formal document appointing Laura Roslin as the new Secretary of Education. "It won't be official until I'm sworn in, but it's practically ready to go."

_Practically?_

"Richard, I thought you said—"

"I know, I know. The Secret Service wanted to clarify a couple of points with your security clearance. As soon as that's taken care of, I'll sign it."

The room seemed to get a few degrees colder.

"What do you mean, a couple of points? I had a background check done before I became superintendent of schools. You saw that when I joined your campaign...we even talked about it, remember?"

He pulled his arm from her shoulder and turned to face her. "Laura, did your father ever do any work for the Defense Department? Any consulting or anything?"

She kept her face immobile, trying to hide her surprise. "Not that I know of. He never told me anything like that. Why?"

Richard took her hand, holding it with a light grasp that was a shade different from his usual firm touch. "Well, there may be some discrepancies in your father's records. Things like a man he roomed with after college says he has no recollection of your Dad. And his last resume listed a couple of years teaching at an academy that they couldn't find a record of ever existing."

Laura pulled her hand back, hiding the slight shaking by resting it firmly on her thigh. "Richard, that must have been…that was over forty years ago! My Gods, are they going back to before the War?"

"I know…" he said in soothing tones. "I told them it's probably due to records getting blasted during the fighting. And just this week, one of the officers in charge of the archives says he knew your Dad personally and would swear that there was no irregularities whatsoever in his history."

"Well, there you go, then." She leaned back and tried not to think of lockboxes and flags. The closeness they shared in their occasional trysts had never risen to the level of comfort she would have needed to share her father's secrets, even if she could have spared the time.

He ran his fingers lightly along her shoulder. "Personally, I think the Service got a little uncomfortable about your Adama association."

She stiffened slightly against his touch. "Richard, not that again. We've been over that."

His hazel eyes grew hooded as he studied her face. "I know. That's part of the problem as well. When we talked about this before, you didn't mention you had been in a romantic relationship with him."

She could feel her face staring to flush. "That was one summer, after I graduated from high school, Richard. I can't believe—"

"A teenage summer fling, and taking his kids to see him…a few tire changes and tune-ups…that's it?" He looked so earnest, she thought, although she didn't miss the beginning edge of suspicion in his question. _He wants that to be the truth so much, but there's something in the way.._. She searched her memory for anything else that might have popped up. She doubted anyone knew about the break-in; she had seen the officer shred the forms after she told him she wouldn't press charges. And she was sure no one knew about the one accidental meeting that night she was grieving again for her mother….

_Grieving. Of course. _She sighed with relief as a plausible explanation for his suspicion came to her.

"Richard, I didn't even think of this until just now. I'd been such a wreck back then…but Bill Adama did help me with my father and sisters' funerals. My Dad had named him to be one of the pallbearers. It was—I was…" her voice trailed off as she tried to find the words to describe her horror at their deaths.

Her eyes began welling up as he drew her close again, all distance between them seemingly obliterated.

"Gods, Laura, thank you so much for telling me this. I didn't know what to think, trying to remember what you'd told me, comparing it to the reports I was seeing…I'm so glad you decided to not hold anything back."

"I have to say, Richard, this seems a little extreme for security clearance for Secretary of Education." She pulled back and searched his expression. "This isn't about the appointment, is it? All this concern about my background, my family...this is about us. About you."

He rubbed at his eyes with the back of his hand, whether from emotion or tiredness, she couldn't tell. "Presidential Security was _this_ close to telling me they couldn't support my continuing to…spend private time with you if you weren't honest about this, on top of the questions they had about your father." He opened his briefcase in front of him and took out a handful of photographs.

There were five shots of Bill with his arm around her at her father and sisters' funerals. All looked like they'd been taken with a long-range lens.

"These showed up after the new security clearance had started. Somebody left them on the administrative assistant's desk before she arrived for work." Cautious relief was all over his face.

Laura ran her fingers over the prints. "I can't imagine why someone would take shots of my Dad's funeral, but that's what this was. He was just being a good friend."

Richard stood up, already beginning to strive for a Presidential demeanor. "I get it, Laura…I really do. I've got friends from the old neighborhood myself. But this guy and his gang are dangerous associates. He's a convicted felon and there's a lot of speculation in the Caprica City PD and the DA's office about what the Tauron Outlaws are into. For your upcoming position, for me…promise me you'll stay away from him."

She stood as well and took his hands in hers. "Of course I promise, Richard. Why wouldn't I?"

She looked down at the manila envelope still on the couch, her appointment papers peeking out of the top. She was almost positive she was telling the truth. She ignored the faint clenching in her chest as she thought about Richard's request. She could do this, she told herself.

_Why would she ever need to see Bill Adama again?_


	28. Chapter 28 A Likely Prospect

Most of the club officers ignored the television behind the bar as they sauntered past, the volume turned down on another soundbite of Adar going on about striding boldly into a bright, forward-looking future, according to the words at the bottom of the screen.

Saul glared at the television for a second before holding his hand out for a cold bottle. "Why don't you find another channel before the Old Man comes through, kid? Try the Triad tournament on channel 12."

"Another one here, Sparky," Bill said as he walked up behind Saul, glancing up at the silenced scene of card players around a fancy felt table. Drinks in hand, they went into the inner sanctum of the club and shut the door behind them.

The other officers were already gathered near the head of the massive carved table. They were slapping each other's backs and talking trash while they settled themselves in their seats, some lighting stogies or home-rolled smokes, beer bottles hissing as they were popped open. At Bill's nod, Saul went to the massive door and opened it, waving the waiting man inside. The chatter ebbed as Saul returned to his Sergeant at Arms seat and re-lit his cigar. All eyes focused on the now-familiar figure standing before them, holding sheaves of rolled-up papers in his arms.

The leather vest with cut-off sleeves and a rocker patch reading "PROSPECT" on the back looked incongruous on the olive-skinned man with jet-black curls and a finely chiseled mouth…until you got to the eyes. Then it became clear that the inked panther on his arm was more totem than decoration. He wouldn't have been a pilot or a gunner back in the war, not this guy, thought Bill. He'd have been tactical, acquiring targets and plotting moves with quiet stealth for others to execute.

Felix Gaeta had been sequestered for the past few weeks in one of the crash rooms at the back of the clubhouse, burning up his laptop as he worked a search grid over a geo-map of Caprica. Every week, before church, before the meeting room was packed with the rank and file, the club officers gathered as he brought in spreadsheets and maps, pages of printed data…and prices. He rode the men's learning curve with finesse, watching Bill for signs that he was moving too fast, or lagging behind their impatience.

"What've you got for us this time, Prospect?" Saul had stopped mocking Gaeta after the first couple of weeks, and his question was tinged with uncharacteristic respect.

Gaeta looked up at Bill as he spread out the map at the head of the table. "Shall I start?"

"Go ahead, Gaeta."

Bill watched the slight nervousness of the young man dissipate as he picked up ashtrays to hold the map flat and checked the circled areas against the list in his hand, muttering coordinates to himself as he made final pencil marks here and there. Lee and Galen were focused on the map already as the other men leaned forward, questioning eyes on the young man.

Gaeta cleared his throat and began. Bill had to tell him to bottom-line what he was saying a couple of times, but as he finished and asked for questions, even Saul was nodding his head.

"So tell me again why this parcel is so cheap?" Saul growled at the map like it was a trick.

"Well, besides being isolated and 98 klicks from the nearest population center, it's land-locked. There's no road going from a public highway to the property. The seller has agreed to allow the buyer access through his land." Gaeta straightened and looked at Bill, as if waiting for permission to deliver bad news. At Bill's nod, he continued.

"The thing is, he could change his mind, and the buyer would have no legal right to access his own property without the seller's permission."

Bill and Saul looked at each other across the table.

"By the time we need it, property rights won't be an issue," Bill said quietly.

"Got that right." Saul tapped the ashes off the end of his cigar.

"It's got the features you asked for, Mr. Adama. There's an underground water source, it's heavily wooded, there's a high ridge on the property…it's"—his nervous swallow was audible as he looked at the tableful of grim, aging men—"it's defendable, in my opinion."

Bill looked around the room at his officers, his original members. "All in favor?"

He could see the wheels turning in every head at the table. This purchase was different from the guns, the ordnance they'd been running and buying for so long. This buy…this would make it all real.

One by one, he watched the men who had ridden with him for years raise their hands and reach into an unknowable future. They weren't just voting on a club buy. They were voting on their belief of the shape of things to come. Finally, with a mixture of emotions playing across each weathered face, man after man met his look and gave him a solemn "aye".

"Opposed?"

After holding the silence for a beat, he tapped his gavel as a formality. "The ayes have it. That's parcel number one." He pointed his gavel at Gaeta."You got everything you need on this?"

Gaeta nodded. "I'll draw up the offer. Now, this next one…"

By the time they were ready to open their weekly church, four new parcels of land in different locations over Caprica had been identified and agreed upon. Each parcel had key features in common: they were isolated and hard to get to, at least eighty kilometers from the nearest city, had a water source and lots of natural cover. The process became easier as the men grew more used to the commitments they were making. Bill doubted he'd live to see even a fraction of their new properties, but that was fine. They weren't for him; they would be for others.

_For survivors._

"Gaeta, get with Galen about the money." He glanced up at his treasurer. "Galen, the other clubs have made their deposits for this, right?"

Galen pulled a print-out from a thick account ledger and scanned it again carefully. "Yeah, boss. The MCs in Phoebus wired their share in last night."

"You got civvies?" Bill looked over the rim of his glasses at the young man in the plain leather vest.

Gaeta's increased ease in the group was apparent in his relaxed grin. "Sure, Mr. Adama. I've even got a three piece suit, somewhere."

"Don't get crazy. Just wear something that looks like a civilian would wear on a Saturday. A civilian with money." He looked over at his son. "Lee, get his picture and do up an ID that says he's a resident of Delphi." He turned back to Gaeta. "And kid…for frak's sake, call me Bill_._"

.

.

The members ambled out of the large room at the end of the meeting, a couple of the newer members getting silenced by Lee for questioning what the Prospect was doing in the pre-meeting. Saul closed the door on the chatter and sat down next to Bill.

"You got a timeline for this?" All crude joviality had left him, and he reminded Bill of the young warrior he had been years ago.

"No. But it's coming. You know who Gaius Baltar is? Dr. Gaius Baltar?" Bill pronounced the name with deliberate contempt.

"That whiz-kid genius asshole scientist? The one who started the Caprica City VA Riots?"

"That's him. Word is, he's got a contract to upgrade the Colonial Defense system." Bill tried to keep the dread out of his voice, but he could tell by Saul's face that the feeling was shared.

Saul chewed on this for a few seconds before he spoke again."Frak me…what the frak does _he_ know about defense? And why now?"

Bill walked over to the window, hands in his pockets as he looked up at the sky. "The chickens, Saul. The chickens Mr. Roslin told me about before he died…" He glanced at the closed door then looked back at Saul.

"I think we're getting closer to the day those chickens come home to roost."

Saul returned his solemn look. "What you're saying, Bill, you—_us_, going up against a guy with Baltar's cred…you think we'll be believed when the time comes?"

"All I can do is offer the proof I've been given over the years. It was good enough for me, for you, for Cottle and the rest of the originals."

Saul nodded thoughtfully. "Day's coming soon when you'll need to tell Lee and the others everything."

"I know." Bill shook his head, suddenly tired of long-range plans and plotting. "Day's coming to bring Zak in, too." He nodded towards the empty chair to the right of Lee's seat.

Saul looked away. "Bill, you sure Zak should come into the life, with all this? I mean, I love him like my own, but that wild woman he's been running with—"

"_Kara_. Her name is Kara Thrace, Saul. Starbuck, if you want to try being friendly for a change."

"I don't want to be her frakkin' _friend!_ She's insane!" He glowered as Bill started chuckling.

"Frak, you're just pissed off she rode with the boys that hijacked that last shipment you had your eye on. And she was damn good at it, they said. She did a decoy and evade move that took the cops miles from our crew."

"Oh, I heard," Saul scoffed. "She crowed about that for a week. You need to tell Zak to rein her in, acting like she's a member, or somebody'll do it for him."

Bill put a cautioning hand on Saul's arm. "Saul…she's probably gonna be Zak's old lady one of these days. So she helps the club in non-traditional ways." He shrugged. "It's a member's old lady doing her part for the MC. That's the way it's supposed to be. The money ends up in the same place."

"Zak's not even patched in yet."

Bill wished he couldn't see the hint of doubt in Saul's eyes, but they'd ridden together too long.

"He'll get patched. He knows he's got to prove himself first, even if I don't keep him a Prospect for a year. I told him to come up with a plan that'll be a significant service to the club, execute it successfully, and I'd put his membership up for a vote. Just like I did with Lee."

Saul got up, wincing as his knees popped. "Well, good luck to him then, Old Man," he sniffed. "C'mon, let's go see if the kids left us any booze out there."

Relieved at the change in subject, Bill clapped his old friend on the back as they opened the door and re-joined the rowdy crowd.


	29. Chapter 29 Kara, Carving Deep

_Kara Thrace is afraid of Bill Adama_.

It might as well be tattooed on her arm in invisible ink: permanent, hidden, stinging. It is always with her, even before she met the man. As soon as Zak got drunk enough on cheap beer to talk about his father in depth, Kara's been afraid.

Old Man Adama's never had a reputation for violence…_well, he's never pulled time for violence_, she amended. There's rumors that anyone who hurts someone close to him will have hell to pay, though, and that's what scares her. It feels strange, being scared of someone like that. Kara's generally fearless. It's been her particular cross to bear.

She hadn't been afraid of her mother, or her teachers, or the law, although it wasn't for their lack of trying. She faked her first ID when she was fifteen, leaving home and crashing with friends and strangers as she worked a few nights pulling beers one place, a few nights dancing at another.

By sixteen she could do some card-counting and hustling; enough to buy her a bike and get the hell out of Delphi. She headed to Caprica City, confidence battling fear in her heart. She had been existing from day to day, boosting wallets here, getting in on a Triad game there, when she finally got a legit job: grease monkey and go-fer at a shady-looking garage that ran a chop shop in the back.

By eighteen Kara had a two room apartment where the utilities worked most of the time, a better bike…and a boyfriend. A good guy, sweet as he could be, and mostly law-abiding. Not usually her type, but he had the bluest eyes she'd ever seen, and he acted like there was nothing wrong with her. She liked that about him and hated it at the same time. Sweet but blind was a dangerous combination, and the sweet parts kept threatening to lull her into thinking this could work.

Zak Adama made her feel loved and smart and competent. He trusted her. Knowing this made her perversely reckless, made her drink too much, made her do stupid stuff to push him to open his eyes. It didn't work: he invited her to be around his family, his brother, his club uncles and their old ladies.

She hated it.

There were too many rules, too much protocol. She tried hard to blow it, to take things to a level where Zak would be told to drop her. She swaggered and smart-mouthed, picked fights with others, made even more of a drunken jackass of herself than usual when she got the chance. Zak kept sticking up for her, taking her to his house, rolling them together on his big wide bed until she didn't want to fight him anymore.

She caved for good the day Lee Adama came looking for his brother's help and found Zak too sick from a summer cold to ride. Against her better judgment, Kara volunteered to help the short-handed Lee and a few others hijack a transfer truck full of high-dollar goods.

She figured she'd be good at it. She hadn't counted on how good it would make her feel, like she'd found her true calling. The brashness of it, the close calls, the daredevil riding and feinting was like moonshine being shot straight into her veins. She was walking on air when she parked her bike and strode into _Adama Automotive_ like she had every right to be there. She'd even gotten a smile from Old Man Adama himself, along with a dark glower from his Sergeant at Arms.

That's when the real learning had started. Lee began to throw her a tip now and then about fitting in with the life. Kara made sure she was by Zak's side when Helo offered up guidance and patient instruction. She had started to ask a question or two, butting in when Zak fell silent, and Helo had seemed happy to answer

She found herself poring over hand-drawn maps, identifying cut-offs and hiding places. She was careful not to go to the same person too often for schooling, and kept to the shadows when men gathered by the fire barrel to warm their hands and plan out loud.

Once in a while, there would be secrets whirling around the club that felt…_different_ from the smuggling and boosting and heists that were the usual business of the MC. That kind of change in atmosphere made her fingers throb at the broken places, made her cajole Zak away from whatever he was doing and grab their bikes and _ride._ No one ever objected…and now that she thought about it, the last time she and Zak disappeared like that, the perpetually hostile Tigh seemed almost relieved as they headed out of the lot.

Kara would take Zak to the flats outside of Caprica City and work on maneuvers, both on and off their bikes. He could ride well enough. Nothing wrong with his skills there. But mapping routes on the fly while being pursued, shaking a tail…there was something missing. The terror-fueled instinct to get away, the adrenaline edge that fear gave a person on the run…that didn't come together for Zak.

Late at night, when he'd want to cuddle and kiss her after they'd frakked, it would come to her sometimes, what his problem was. Zak hadn't had enough fear in his life. He was too optimistic, too trusting, too sure things would work out. His edges had been blunted by too much safety.

On the nights she let herself think about this, she knew he shouldn't follow his father and brother into Outlaw life. He idolized his family, though, and cherished his Tauron heritage. He'd adopted his father's beliefs as his own. He was so sure there was a place waiting for him at the heavy carved table…and Zak wanted it so much, she could taste it on his tongue when they kissed.

She thought she could get him there, maybe. His instincts weren't great, but most of the time, he could follow her directions, follow her lead. Soon, something big would come along, she thought. Something big enough to be his chance at proving himself. If she could just take over his body, his hands, his feet, his brain for a day, let him get a feel for split-second decisions, he could do it.

She would try harder, she told herself. Drill him more, try and get through to him the abilities that came to her as naturally as drinking a cold beer on a hot day. Maybe if the club let them work together on a job, his skills would improve. She could ask around, see if one of the lesser MC members had something coming up that Zak could handle with her help. If Zak could be successful, show them he did have the chops, she knew Bill would fast-track him into becoming a new member. She hadn't been around when Lee patched in, but Bill didn't strike her as a man who would let an Adama wear the "Prospect" cut for long.

_Zak would be so happy!_ The thought made her smile. She envisioned him in the Tauron Outlaw colors, his cut a newer version of his dad's, waiting to be marked with the signs of his life.

And if he failed, if he got arrested, or hurt…she pictured Bill Adama, grieving, angry, features like the side of a desert cliff. She thought about all that anger turned towards her, holding her responsible for encouraging his son. It was a mental picture that always made her restless, made her reach for liquor or weed or Zak's body to block those thoughts.

_Kara Thrace is in love with Zak Adama_. This was carved into her heart.

_Kara Thrace is afraid of Bill Adama. _That was carved into her gut.

The day was coming when she'd find out which was stronger, and a refrain of "love conquers all" kept looping through her mind, terrifying her with its tempting false simplicity.


	30. Chapter 30 The Morning After

The moon was a luminous pale crescent, casting cold light through the clouds and the tangle of tree limbs above the two men. Stray breezes in the deserted park set children's swings swaying back and forth for a few seconds before inertia brought them to rest again.

"It's a pie job, man. Here's the directions. It should take two hours, max, to get there. Once you see the cubits, hand over this."

"This is big, though, right? I mean, big enough.…" Zak looked younger than nineteen in the moonlight.

"Yeah, yeah...you bring ten grand to the table tomorrow, you'll have everybody's appreciation." The man in the shadows checked his watch.

"And you cleared the deal with my dad?" The question was a formality. Zak was already strapping the saddlebags closed, his cargo buried inside.

"Your dad's a busy man. This is a little off-book, okay? From before I came back. I know how your old man feels about dealing junk; this gets it off my hands and brings cash to the club. Everybody wins."

It took Zak two tries to get the key in the ignition.

The man in the shadows sighed. "Look, if you're having doubts…."

The engine roared to life. "I'm fine. Kara—my old lady—she's a natural at this kind of thing. She's been working with me for weeks." The darkness hid his blush. It was the first time Zak had called Kara his old lady, the first time he'd told anyone she'd been helping him acquire the skills that should have come more naturally.

His heart was racing as hard as the engine.

"Who are you gonna ask for again?" the man prompted.

"Meier…shared cell 8-C at the DOC on Saggitaron with you."

"You'll do fine, Zak. You'll be throwing a saddlebag full of cubits on the table before breakfast."

"Thanks, Tom. I owe you."

Tom Zarek squeezed Zak's shoulder like he used to before a big soccer game, that year he lived with them full-time.

"No problem, Zak. Go show your father what you're made of."

He walked back into the shadows and lit a cigarette, watching Zak ride out of his sight.

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The club always had a sour, stale smell first thing in the morning. Spilled alcohol, old smoke, and the odors that sleeping bodies give off in the night mixed together in a sad perfume. Bill dodged around puddles of liquor and empty bags of chips, mentally choosing a clean-up crew from the sprawled sleepers scattered on the couches. He stretched out the kinks in his back, wishing he'd gone on home last night instead of crashing at the club. He saw Lee across the room, curled up with one of the girls. _Looks like Zak had the house all to himself with Kara again last night._

He went through the back doors to the office and started opening blinds. Clear skies and sunny; looked like it was shaping up to be a nice day. He watched the golden morning light filling up the plate glass window in front of him as he looked over the parking lot. The coffee maker by his desk had just started to gurgle and drip when he saw the black-and-white police cruiser pull up, Assistant Chief Fisk at the wheel.

At least he thought that was still Fisk's title. He watched the old man start to slowly unfold himself from the driver's side of the car. The man had to be at least sixty-five, and moved like he felt every day of it. As he watched Fisk finally heave himself out of the patrol car, Bill ran down a quick list of current illegal activity and assured himself there was little possibility that this visit posed a threat. He doubted it would be a warrant; Fisk was getting too old for that. He pretended he didn't hear the whisper centered around the pit of his stomach that offered other reasons an old, run-down cop might have to show up on a doorstep in the early morning hours.

"Coffee about ready?" Saul stood in the doorway between office and club, first cigarette of the day already between his teeth.

"Pot's on. Hang on for a minute while I find out what Fisk wants." Bill walked to the gold-stenciled front door and went out to the officer. He didn't meet Saul's eyes as he brushed past.

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_Oh, this can't be good._

Saul watched the two men as he sloshed coffee into his chipped mug. Frakker's too old for a bust, and he didn't work off the books anymore, so….

The hang-dog sorrowful look on Fisk's face, making his jowls droop more than usual, suddenly made sense. Saul didn't have to be able to read lips to see "_I'm sorry to inform you that there's been an accident" _coming out of the man's mouth. He could read it in the sudden sag of his friend's shoulders, his hands going up to push the words away.

Saul stepped to one side of the plate glass window, eyes on his friend, and tried to remember if it had been Zak's or Lee's discarded boots he'd almost tripped over this morning. He watched Bill grab Fisk's arm with a beefy hand, almost shaking him as he seemed to be asking a stream of questions, then letting go with a push that put the policeman off-balance. Fisk became more animated, gesturing towards the clubhouse and the row of parked bikes until Bill said something else, lips barely moving. Fisk shook his head and looked at his feet. Without raising his head, he put a shaky hand on Bill's arm. Bill turned his wrist to wrap his hand around Fisk's forearm, like he was desperate to hold on to something, anything. Saul watched as his friend's face began twisting in on itself.

Saul yanked the front door open hard enough to set the little brass bell jangling, jarring the morning quiet. He stood on the steps, meeting Bill's eyes when he looked over. The wet on Bill's cheeks was visible, making shiny sunlit tracks down towards the corners of his mouth. His clear blue eyes reflected horror and disbelief, and a terrible, final, knowing. A flash of memory ran through Saul's mind as he watched his friend try to say a name. The boots he saw this morning, casually discarded in the night, bore stylized skulls at each ankle.

Lee's boots.

He and Bill spoke at the same time; one asking a question, one giving the answer.

_Zak._

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The long tanned leg was warm and smooth. It was also pressing against his bladder. Lee turned and pushed the leg away, then grabbed a slender waist to keep the woman next to him from falling off the couch.

"Hey, baby." Her voice had a sleepy Scorpion drawl. His look traveled from the flat belly revealed by her low-riding shorts to the gentle swelling of the underside of her breasts, barely visible under the edge of the tank top that had ridden up in her sleep. Black waves fell over her shoulders as she raised her head to give him a vague smile.

_Huh. A brunette. How did that happen?_

"Hey, yourself, uh…." _Frak_. He rustled through his memory. Carrie, Mary…something with a "y" at the end….

"Cherry, right? Morning, Cherry." He scratched his stomach as he sat up. His mouth tasted like stale whiskey and sour beer. He couldn't tell if there was the taste of a woman on his lips or not. He searched her face and saw a little too much eagerness to please, like she was still trying to close a deal.

"You want me to get you some coffee?"

She was sitting up now, legs folded under her and leaning forward so he could see down her shirt. He looked instead to the clock behind the bar and groaned. _7:00 am_. Too early to be up for a clubful of people who'd partied until two in the morning.

"Not yet, babe. I'm gonna go take care of some business. Why don't you get a little more sleep?"

From the disappointment in her eyes and his morning wood, he was guessing he'd crashed before they did anything besides fool around. He looked over the dingy club, at the couple of members who had fallen asleep wherever they'd been at the end of the night. He shrugged. Surely if he'd been sober enough to frak, he'd have been sober enough to move off the couch and go to one of the rooms in the back.

As he stood up, she reclined again, stretching her legs out where he'd been sitting and turning onto her stomach. "Suit yourself," she pouted, laying her head down on her folded arms. He let his eyes linger over the curved muscles of her arms and shoulders, dark and gleaming in the low morning light. The taste of her skin under his tongue came back to him as he smiled. More than fooling around might be on the agenda this morning.

.

Lee finished in the bathroom, splashing water over his face after brushing his teeth and rinsing his mouth of the night's excesses. Taking a leak hadn't done anything to bring down his hard-on, he realized. He rummaged in the cabinet over the sink for the brand of condoms he favored. He figured there'd be at least one of the back crash rooms empty. And if not, he could always roust his old man out of his room. He smirked at his reflection. _Wasn't like he ever used it for anything besides sleeping. _

He had walked back into the main club area and was admiring the way Cherry was lazily kicking her foot up and down when Saul opened the heavy door of the meeting room and beckoned him inside. He groaned as he looked from Saul's typical frown back to the girl's teasing hazel eyes. _Frak me, this had better be important_. He winked at Cherry and flashed the condom between his thumb and forefinger, grinning. Slipping it back into his front pocket, he followed Saul into the room. He hoped this would be short, and hoped somebody had made some frakking coffee.

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_._

Limp silver-blond hair hung like tattered curtains around Carolanne's cheeks as she sagged in the kitchen chair, face in her hands. She raised her head at the sound of liquid pouring into the tumbler in front of her. She only hesitated a second; staying sober suddenly seemed pointless now. She pointed at the cigarette pack on the table and watched with dull eyes as Tom shook one from the pack and lit it for her.

"Are you sure?" She picked up the glass.

He lit a cigarette for himself as he paced around her narrow kitchen. "Yeah, babe. Somebody'll be around later to give you the official word, but the guy who called me said he was gone before the EMTs got there."

The burn of the whiskey opened her throat a little from its choking clench. "I don't understand. Zak wasn't patched in yet…why'd that son-of-a-bitch send him out on something dangerous?" She was more talking to herself than to the man in front of her and was surprised when he answered.

"Carolanne, it wasn't really club business that he was on. Zak had been looking for something he could do on his own, make a name for himself with the club…with his father. One of my old contacts needed some product moved to a local gang. I thought—_we_ thought it'd be an easy run, and the profit would be enough to get the Outlaws' attention…show that Zak was ready."

She tried to read his face, to see if there was culpability written there, but her ability to read men and suss out their truths had faded along with the blue of her eyes. He just looked nervous to her. She closed her smudged eyelids and could see Zak and Lee sitting at the table, squabbling over who got the most cereal, who had gotten the best action-hero bowl. Smoke was winding a thin thread towards the ceiling when she opened her eyes again. She took another long drag and realized that Tom was gone. Stubbing her cigarette out, she picked up her glass and went to her bedroom.

"What are you doing?" She realized that was a stupid question as soon as she said it. He was cramming a few clothes into a worn backpack he'd thrown on her unmade bed.

"Your ex is going to figure out I handed this off to Zak, and he's gonna blame me." He didn't look at her as he opened a dresser drawer and started grabbing underwear and socks.

A ghostly echo was in her ears, the sound of sock-footed boys running in the hallway and making motorcycle sounds with their mouths. The cheap imitation silk robe suddenly felt too hot on her skin. Too many questions hung in the air. She took another deep swallow, hoping the alcohol would dull the sounds in her head.

"What are you going to do, Tom?" Another stupid question. He was starting to run, like he had when Bill got out of prison. Like he'd done the last time he and Lee had gotten into a fight over…she couldn't quite remember what that had been over. Probably something about the godsdamned club.

His tee shirt stretched tight over his torso as he pulled it off over his head. Carolanne leaned against the door jamb and looked at his bare back, the Tauron Outlaws insignia tattooed in red and black across his shoulders, the Caprican Charter marks almost at his waist. She walked over and touched the faded "Z" and "C" that were worked into another set of initials: a more colorful "Z" twined with an "L".

"Do you remember how excited Zak was when you got that? He said his daddy only had an "L". She traced the "Z" on his skin as tears started to run unnoticed again, falling and darkening the blue of her robe. She felt the shiver that ran through her old lover's back muscles and laid her palm on his shoulder.

He finally turned, and this time she read the fear and regret that was in his face, and felt a cutting satisfaction at the glaze of unshed tears in his eyes. He took the glass from her hand and set it on the dresser.

"I am so sorry, Carolanne. I never wanted anything to happen to him. It—he just wanted to be part of his dad's club so frakking bad."

"And it would've looked good on you, too, wouldn't it, Tom? Being the one to give Zak this chance instead of his old man, having Zak's gratitude, doing what his father didn't do for him—_again_…that would've done something for you, wouldn't it?" She could feel the rage start to blossom past the pain. She welcomed it. Rage was familiar, comfortable…a weapon to fight off the grief that was starting to push its way to the front of her brain.

He looked past her, all traces of his usual confident smirk wiped away. "I can't talk to you when you get like this. I don't know what else to say, babe." He ducked as the empty glass flew against the wall and shattered where his head had been.

"Don't frakking call me "babe", you son-of-a-bitch! Zak would still be alive if it wasn't for your frakking 'help'!" She slowly sank to the floor, robe puddled around her feet as she started to sob in earnest. She looked up to see him pulling a black shirt over his head, covering the inked insignias that told the world who he was, what he was.

"Tom? Don't leave me alone." She exhaled a breathy "please" into her folded arms.

_Don't leave me alone with the echoes of their laughter, their little-boy footsteps thudding on the hardwood floor as they'd run up and down the hall._

A frantic litany of "Zak's not dead! He can't be dead!" got louder and louder inside her head. She wished she hadn't had that last drink, and she wished at the same time she had another one in her hand.

She watched with dull eyes as he dropped beside her, sitting on his haunches. "I cared about him, too, Carolanne. I cared about both of them."

She didn't try to see if that looked like a lie or not. It felt like sympathy and that would have to be enough for now. She could feel her mouth quivering and hated herself for needing him. "Can't you stay until somebody comes? I don't…I don't think I can take being alone when somebody else comes here to tell me he's gone."

Her heart rose for a second as he leaned in to kiss her forehead.

"I took a hundred cubits from the nightstand. I've got to find an ink-slinger before Bill finds me. You know the rules."

She sighed. "Turn around, then. If this is it, I want to see them one last time."

He stood and turned, pulling up his shirt. Carolanne rose and took one last, long look at his tattoos, touching again the ones that said she and her sons had meant something to him once. She dug her nails in to rake at the letters of the Tauron Outlaw insignia and hoped it would hurt like hell when new black ink started to prick into his skin, needle by needle. He stood there and took it in silence until her sobs hit her again, then he walked out, bags in hand. He didn't look back as he left her alone.

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######################################

.

The bed was level and cool, and the sheets and blankets were over her in the same position she'd put them when she finally went to sleep. Kara frowned without opening her eyes. No heat. No dip to the left side. No blankets hogged by a restless body. She knew Zak hadn't come home before she reached out and touched the other side of the bed.

_Godsdamn you, Zak. What have you done?_

She kept her mind blank as she went through the minimum of her morning ritual, washing her face, brushing her teeth. She glanced once at her Goddess-box and let her eyes move on by. It seemed out of place in the Adama house and she wondered again why she bothered to bring it along. She only prayed when the Goddesses had a fighting chance of doing something for her. She'd given up bothering them for lost causes. She always felt worse when she begged for something she knew she wouldn't get.

The deadbolts and chain locks in her mind strained against the knowledge that threatened to break down her mental doors. She would let Zak into her head after she got to the club. There'd be people there who understood. A shiver ran through her as she locked the front door behind her and strode to the driveway, dew-damp grass darkening her boots.

They might blame her, or hate her. They might even hurt her, putting the reasons for whatever happened to him on her shoulders, for all she knew. She fought to ignore the inner whispers of "_he's dead, Kara, you stupid little bitch, he's dead, and you know it_". The voice sounded like her mother.

She slipped into her helmet and got on her bike, kick-starting it into a rough rumble. Whatever waited for her at the club, it would be better than hiding here or in her apartment, waiting for a knock on the door. She'd rather hear whatever she had to hear from Bill Adama instead of from the bitter voice of her mother that lived inside her head.

She could see her mother's face sneering in agreement as she sped along the highway in the morning traffic. She might not know the details yet, but she already knew whatever happened would be her fault.

It always was.

.

_#########################################_

_._

Laura cut the vacuum off when she felt the thump of the afternoon newspaper bouncing off her door. She surveyed the living room and dining area and decided she'd cleaned enough to earn herself a short break. Richard had stopped coming to her apartment since the election and she had few other guests. If she missed a spot, she figured she'd live.

She pulled a diet soda from the refrigerator on her way to get the paper from the front steps. Flicking on the television and putting her feet up, she began flipping through the paper, skimming the pages for anything significant. Nothing stood out as being about the Ministry of Education, and the editorial pages had no more than the usual share of slams against the Adar administration.

She had already refolded the paper when she noticed a few leftover streaks on the living room windows, now highlighted by the afternoon sun. Grumbling, she pulled out a handful of inner pages as she got up to go buff out the marks.

_Adama. _

The name jumped out as she looked at the sheets she was crumpling in her hand. She smoothed the paper out as she sat back down and looked closer at the daily listing of crime reports and accidents.

"Oh, my Gods!" Her hand flew to her lips to stop the cry that was already there.

_He had been such a sweet boy, so good-natured. _

Tears made the type blur as she scanned the words.

_Fatal accident on Highway 109. _

_Motorcycle. _

_Hit and run. _

_One victim. _

_Zak Adama._

She glanced at the repaired Viper that still sat on her bookshelf. She saw its twin, balanced between two sets of hands: one large, calloused and dark, one small, a bit grubby and shyly reaching for the Viper.

Her soda slipped unnoticed from her hand, spilling over the just-cleaned floor, as she began weeping, newspaper crumbled in her lap.

_Poor Zak. Poor Lee._

She wept harder for a sibling now left alone forever.

_Poor Bill._

Her cries turned into sobs as she threw the paper away from her as hard as she could.

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##############################################

.

It hadn't taken Bill long to find what he was looking for. He'd been keeping it for Zak where he'd kept Lee's before he'd earned his colors, in the back of the closet next to his funeral suit. He slipped the leather vest off its hanger, running his fingers over the large patches from shoulder to waist that would have told the world who Zak was, who had his back. The stiff black front had small white patches with black embroidery, _Tauron Outlaws _above _Original Caprica._

He would have watched the bright white of Zak's patches turn dirty grey over time, as Lee's had done, and the leather would have lost its stiffness as it became a part of him. Bill looked down at his chest, at his own patches, weathered and faded with a thread hanging loose.

_I need to take care of that before the funeral._

He folded the leather vest so the red and brown back patch and rockers showed. Zak wouldn't be buried wearing colors he hadn't earned in life, but the vest his father had prepared for him would go into the casket before it closed. Bill hugged the leather to his chest like a life jacket, squeezing his eyes shut as he remembered the last time he'd hugged his younger son.

He raised his head at the hesitant knocking, frowning as he went to the door. After they'd returned from the morgue, he'd told Saul to keep everybody away from him for a while, unless it was Lee or….

_Kara._

"Hey, Starbuck. C'mon in."

He shut the door behind her and laid the thick leather on the bed. Kara stood there facing him, eyes red-rimmed, her hands jammed into her back pockets. Her gaze flickered over his face, then settled somewhere around his knees.

"Is it true?"

He gave the vest one more look. "Yeah."

"Frak." He watched her turn her head away, a bitter grin on her lips. "This is so frakked up, Mr. Adama. I should've let him alone, not tried to show him my stupid frakkin' moves." Her jaw clenched against the tears that had started to shine in her eyes.

It felt natural for him to pull her into a bear hug like he'd give one of the boys. "It's not your fault, Starbuck." Pulling back, he wiped the tears off her face with his thumb. "I'm glad my son got to be with someone he loved before…."

He stopped, not ready to say the words yet.

She pointed at the folded vest. "Was that for him?"

"It would've been, yeah."

She reached towards it slowly, like she was afraid it might bite. "He wanted this so bad." She stood there by the bed for a few seconds, just looking, then drew in a shuddering sigh and whirled towards the door.

"I'll get out of your way—I know you've got a lot to do."

"Kara…." His voice sounded ready to break, even to his own ears.

"What?" She didn't turn around.

"The house…you can stay as long as you like, if you need to. I'm usually here, and Lee, he comes and goes. Zak would've—"

Her shoulders flinched. "Yeah…I don't know, but…thanks."

He could hear her go out the back exit, boots heavy on the floor in a "don't talk to me" stride. She was a strong one, didn't like to show weakness even in the broken places. In some ways, she understood the life better than Zak did.

_They would have been good together._

He put the leather cut back in the closet before he started looking through the phone book for the funeral home's number. He'd wondered where Laura's strength had come from, where anyone's strength came from, when you had to bury people you loved who died too young.

He guessed he was about to find out.


	31. Chapter 31 Uncomfortably Numb

The numbness was comforting, like going through a drill he knew by heart. Bill had carried this numb feeling for hours, days even, back in the war. Just do the thing in front of you that needs doing, then do the next thing. He could feel later, after everything was over.

Right now the thing in front of him was to clear off the turquoise and chrome kitchen table. The counters were starting to fill up with containers of Tauron noodles and platters of sliced sandwiches from neighbor ladies who had watched Zak and Lee grow up.

He paused in his efforts to answer the knock at the back door. Standing there were two women, strawberry blond twins in tight jeans and matching tank tops, "Tigh One On" written across the front in silver glitter above a silhouette of a pole dancer. One was holding a tray of sliced meats and cheeses and the other had two jugs of iced tea.

"Hey, Mr. Adama. Ellen sent us." He couldn't remember the girls' names, but he recognized them as girls who had been at Ellen's club for a couple of years.

"C'mon in." He held the door open as they brought in Ellen's funeral spread, offering their condolences. As he stood back, they worked in tandem, arranging platters and finding cutlery. The one with a mole on her cheekbone brushed up against him once, making a subtle offer. She smiled and shrugged when he stepped away, and he wondered if Ellen had told her to do that or if it was her idea. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror over the mantle as he went into the living room. He was carelessly shaven and had dark pouches under his blood-shot eyes. _Definitely Ellen's instructions._

Finding himself at loose ends for a moment, he began organizing the clutter of papers and books on the desk next to the fireplace. _The Big Book of Vintage Motorcycles_ had been left out, a couple of pages dog-eared. He wondered if that was the last book Zak had held. Probably so…Lee would have used a bookmark. He lifted the book to the shelf over the desk and stopped, book in mid-air. The girls' rattling around the kitchen faded as his focus narrowed to the little model Viper on the shelf.

The paint had faded at the edges and the model was covered in dust. He closed his eyes and the wooden Viper was fresh and new again, still smelling like the woodshop. He saw Zak's eyes light up again as he had examined the Viper, then held it up for Laura to see. That had been a good day, even if it had ended with him back in his cell.

His numbness started to crumble around the edges. He could still feel Zak's warm, squirmy body as they had hugged goodbye that day, and Lee's stiff reluctance…and Laura's embarrassment when he had kissed her goodbye as well. He set the book back in its place and wondered if there was still a matching Viper on a shelf in her apartment. He blew the dust off the toy and aligned it with the edge of the shelf.

_Frak Zak's privacy, giving him his 'space'. I should have spent more time at home with him while I had the chance._

His chest bucked and he grabbed the edge of the brick fireplace, cracking his thumbnail against the mortar as he pushed the sob back down to his gut. He was William Adama, President of the Tauron Outlaws, a Cylon War vet, and he was not going to be seen crying over a toy. Not today. Not by a couple of strippers.

The back screen door slammed shut and he grabbed the numbness back like a shield.

"Mr. Adama? There's somebody here to see you." The one who didn't have a mole on her cheekbone came over to him and leaned close. "I think he's a cop."

He looked out the front window and recognized Fisk's off-duty sedan.

"Not in uniform?"

"No, just regular. He's got some bags with him."

He stood up. "Thanks. You and your sister probably need to get back." He started to take his wallet out by reflex then saw the hurt look on the young woman's face.

"Me and Teri wanted to do this, okay? Zak was a sweet guy."

He nodded. "Thanks for coming." He walked her into the kitchen and hugged her and her sister. _Meri. They were Meri and Teri. _Bill was glad he'd be able to call the girls by their names when he thanked Ellen later. The table and counter now held neatly arranged platters and bowls of food, and a jug of tea sat next to a cooler full of ice and a saucer of sliced lemons. His grandmother would have approved.

"Fisk," he said in greeting." You have anything new?"

The off-duty cop was in khakis and a stretched-out polo shirt, two grocery bags in his arms.

"I'm not here for that. Brought you some paper plates, plastic cups and stuff. You're gonna have people in and out all day. That's how it was when Amy died…best thing anybody brought me was this kind of thing." He put the bags down and started setting out the items he'd brought, focusing on his task.

Bill waited as Fisk busied himself in the kitchen. He hadn't looked Bill in the eye yet and Bill wondered why not.

"You sure you don't have anything new?"

The old cop was looking everywhere but at Bill. "It's not gonna change anything, Bill."

Placing a cautionary hand on Fisk's arm, Bill asked again. "Is there something I don't know yet?"

Fisk's hands stilled. "We had one of the drug dogs go over the bike. They started acting up over one of the empty saddlebags." His eyes shifted away from Bill. "It's possible there were traces of Stimdust in the bag. "Or"—he shrugged and held his empty hands up—"it's possible there wasn't. It's possible the dogs were given the wrong bag from the evidence room. The report ain't been written up yet. It can turn out however it needs to."

Bill sat down in the chromed kitchen chair, the numbness now edged out by confusion.

_"Zak_? That doesn't sound like him."

"That's what I thought, that you wouldn't have him running junk. But…." The old man hunched his shoulders a little and turned his eyes away. "Is it possible that he needed money for something that maybe he hadn't told you about? I'm just asking, Bill."

Bill was suddenly back at the club, talking to Saul. Brushing off Saul's concerns about Zak.

_I told him to come up with a plan that'll be a significant service to the club, execute it successfully, and I'd put his membership up for _ _a vote. Just like I did with Lee._

He rubbed his forehead with his hand as he stared at the cracked-ice pattern in the Formica. The words he'd said so casually were now going off like bombs in his head.

"Fisk, what's your best guess as to what happened?"

Fisk hadn't always been a good cop, strictly speaking, but he was a knowledgeable cop, and had been working Caprica City for decades, since before Bill had met him. He took his time as he answered. "I think the people he sold something to, decided it wouldn't be that hard, getting their money back. And Zak got spooked and went off the road, and ended up down that embankment. I think his bags got emptied and they took off."

Bill felt a terrible, sickening shaking rise up through his body, flushing his face. His hands were fisted tight, knuckles whitening.

"Is there any chance that Zak—"

Head already shaking a denial, Fisk finished Bill's question for him. "Was still alive and they left him? No. The coroner was clear on that. His neck was—it was over as soon as he hit the ground."

Standing up, Bill felt a wave of relief wash over him, followed by the numbness returning as he realized he was grateful for his son's snapped neck. The old man was speaking again.

"So, there's some options, some possibilities, is what I'm saying."

"My son didn't deal drugs." _Unless he was desperate to impress his old man._

"Good enough for me." Fisk rose from the table, knees popping. "I'll see you tomorrow, Bill. Plan to take some petty leave after I take care of some reports. I wouldn't feel right showing up in uniform."

Bill shook his hand, wrapping one hand around Fisk's bicep. "I appreciate this, man." He nodded at the plates and cups, then met his eyes, saying his words with deliberation. "I appreciate all of it."

Fisk sniffled then let out a long sigh. "The club was there for me when I needed…what I needed for Amy. Thorn wouldn't have turned his hand, even if he'd still been alive."

Bill watched him walk out to his car, closing the dark door in his mind as he turned back to the next thing that needed to be done.

.

* * *

.

"Dad?"

"I'm in here, son. There's a bunch of food in the kitchen, if you want to make a plate."

Bill looked around Zak's room and hoped Lee would be hungry enough to stop in the kitchen, give him a few minutes to wipe his eyes.

Lee walked into his brother's room. "What're you doing?"

"I don't know. Nothing, I guess. Just thinking. Did you get the shirts from the cleaners?'

"Yeah." Lee's face was flushed as he toed some of Zak's discarded clothes around on the floor. "I…I went by Mom's, spent some time with her." He looked up at his father and Bill hated the cautious look in his eyes.

"How is she?"

"About what you'd imagine," he said with a shrug. "She's crying, drinking, blaming you, the club, me…even blamed Tom."

The model motorcycle made a clicking noise as Bill ran it across the table. He tried to get a clear mental picture of Carolanne's face but only got her sneer and her pale hair in his mind's eye. "He still with her?"

Lee sat on his brother's bed, toying with the edge of the comforter. "Don't think so. She says he took off as soon as he heard about Zak."

Bill cocked his head. "She say what that was about?"

"Not really…just another thing she could thank my godsdamn dad for." His posture was a mirror of his father's. "I figured you might know."

"Beats the frak out of me," he said, although he thought he might come back and explore that later.

"Hey what's this?" Lee pulled a scrap of black lace out from under the covers. His laugh startled them both. Bill grinned at the underwear in Lee's hand.

"I'm guessing those are Kara's. She stayed here that night."

Lee looked at the black fabric, then tucked them back under the pillows. "She coming back?"

Bill sat next to his son on the bed, looking over the cluttered nightstand: two glasses, a couple of magazines, half-empty box of licorice, a cup of loose change. Receipts. Two ticket stubs to some band Zak had gone to see the week before. A framed picture of Kara next to one of his bike.

"I don't know. I told her she could. I'm not sure she knows what she wants to do."

He wondered if the band they'd gone to see was any good. None of the CD covers scattered around were familiar, and he realized he didn't know what music his son liked. He watched Lee glance down at the wastebasket and smile at the condom wrappers at the bottom. Lee's eyes were wet as he gave Bill a broken grin.

"Hey, looks like he went out happy, right?"

"Looks like." Bill made a noise between a chuckle and a strangled cough.

He tried to give Lee a reassuring smile but could feel his lips twisting into a grimace. As he looked towards the head of the bed, he imagined he could see Zak's smiling, irreverent face in front of him, almost as clearly as he could see the son that still lived. He reached out to touch a cheek that wasn't there, would never be there again, and found himself sweeping the nightstand with his arm, scattering the detritus of his youngest son's last days all over the floor.

He never did remember what he said as he did that, or what he said as he pounded his fist down on the nightstand over and over until the wood cracked. He remembered wordless moans and hoarse gasps. When he came to himself, he and Lee were holding each other, both of their shirts soaked with tears and mucus.

Lee pulled away first. Bill drew a deep shuddering breath and started feeling around the floor for his glasses that had fallen off at some point. Each looked away as they started picking up the fallen objects, and then in unspoken agreement, they went to different bathrooms to clean themselves up.

There were more things that had to be done before the day was over.

.

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* * *

.

.

People came and went. Helo's old lady had set out a notebook and was trying to keep track of who brought what. They made a nice couple, and the thought made his heart hurt again for what Zak would miss.

"Hey, old man." Saul came up and threw an arm around him. "You making it?"

"Trying to. Listen, tell Ellen thanks for sending Meri and Teri over with the food. It's been a frakking zoo today."

"No problem, bro." It felt good to meet Saul's eyes, to know that someone who had known Zak from birth was there with him. "I got a phone call…I guess the funeral home couldn't get you."

Bill nodded, relieved he could let his shields down for a few minutes. "Yeah, I missed a few calls. What'd they want now?""

"They wanted to know what to tell people who were calling, wanting to make a donation in Zak's memory. I've had a couple people ask me, too, far as that goes." He looked away. "Didn't know if you'd had a chance to think about stuff like that."

Lee came up with a plateful of cold ham and potato salad. It looked to Bill like he'd taken about three bites and then forgotten about it.

"You hear that, Lee? What do you think?"

Lee put his plate down and scanned the room,his gaze falling on a framed certificate hanging on the wall. _Classroom Helper of the Month Award-Zak Adama, Grade 6. _His guarded expression softened. "How about our old school? I kind of hated the place, but Zak was always happy there. He loved Miss Roslin."

Bill's heart felt another sharp jab. "That's a good idea, son. I don't know how to set that up, though."

Saul reached in Bill's front pocket and pulled out his phone. "So call her and ask. You've had the same phone for years. Bet it's still in your contacts from when she used to bring her car in."

He watched Saul scroll through his address book, then hand the phone back. Her name seemed to glow beside the Caprica City number. He looked at his son and his friend, then glanced at the crowd of people overflowing the kitchen.

"Take charge for a while, would you, Saul? I need to make a phone call." He turned and walked into his bedroom, closing the door and standing there for a moment in the dark, looking down at the illuminated name in his phone.

.

.

* * *

.

.

Laura checked the mirror one last time before opening the door. The lighting in her tiny private bathroom seemed designed to make her look worse that she felt. She'd allotted herself five minutes to give in to the crying spell that had been building all morning as she thought of Zak, his poor brother…and Bill.

Biting into her fist had muffled the sobs—she'd cried in this bathroom before and knew how much sound the walls could contain. Unrestrained sobs, she'd learned months ago, were audible in the adjacent hall. She hadn't made that mistake again.

She put her emergency stash of toiletries and makeup back under the sink. She hadn't even tried to cover her pallor or the circles under her eyes. Her liner and mascara had been the most critical fix, and they were satisfactory. She could explain looking exhausted in a myriad of ways, enduring the last weeks of annual budget planning. Looking like she'd been crying, though…she didn't have a good excuse for that.

Her office usually seemed bright and warm compared to the more institutional bathroom. Today, though, it seemed like the weather wasn't cooperating. She turned her back on her desk and its waiting work and looked at the world outside her window.

Through the plate glass, past the blocky buildings of the Governmental Plaza and the towers of the commercial district, Laura watched the clouds rolling in over the bay, white at first, then deepening to grey. Caprica City was in for a dreary day or two, from the looks of things.

It seemed fitting.

She turned from her view of the horizon and sat down at her desk, half-heartedly attacking the stack of memos, reports, and notes in front of her. Still feeling too distracted to focus, she started separating the paperwork into piles of "Now", "Later" and "File", then froze, handful of memos in midair.

Buried half-way down was a sealed envelope that hadn't been there before she had stepped into her tiny bathroom. If she'd started working from the top down as she usually did, she probably wouldn't have gotten to it until tonight. _Somebody wanted me to see this…but not right away._

As soon as she opened the envelope and scanned the contents, she realized why. Enclosed was a draft of the proposed Ministry of Education budget that included a ten percent cut across the board. A bright yellow sticky note was in the corner:

_Sorry, L. Others needed it more. _

_R._

No wonder he didn't want her to see it until he'd left his office for the day. She reached for her personal phone, then swore under her breath and grabbed her desk phone. The note might have been to "L", but Secretary Roslin was going to respond, and part of her hoped the call _would_ be recorded. She turned her chair around to face the bleak sky as she waited for her call to be jumped through all the hoops to get to the president's desk.

"Mr. President, I just received a draft of the proposed budget for my department." She kept her tone cool and professional.

Richard's was just as professional, if a bit caught off-guard, giving her a rehearsed-sounding rationale for the cuts. She broke in after the first excuse about "defense priorities".

"Mr. President, you do realize this will be the_ second year_ we've had no cost of living raise for teachers as well as a hiring freeze, don't you? Do you have any idea of the teachers' attrition rates in the schools?"

A darker curtain of distant rain emerged from a grouping of clouds and started slicing through her view, slowly moving in towards the city.

"What is Baltar—sorry—what is _Doctor_ Baltar doing that's overrunning the Defense budget?" Her mouth tightened as she listened.

"Oh, so the teachers of the Colonies have to wait on _artificial intelligence development?_ With all due respect…." She bit back a comment on intelligence that she wouldn't have wanted recorded on the president's line. She felt a touch of hope when he said he'd be open to discussing the matter further, then scoffed at her own intelligence, or lack thereof, when her private phone started vibrating a few seconds after Richard had ended the official call. She answered him before he had a chance to speak.

"Not today, Richard. I'm not in the mood for…further private _discussion _with you right now." The curtain of rain moved closer, falling perfectly straight. Even in her climate-controlled building, she could feel the air getting still and heavy.

"No…." she drew the word out as if she were really mulling over the possibility of slipping into his private side office during the afternoon lull. "I'm starting a migraine, I think. Must be the change in the weather."

She imagined a sea of black umbrellas in a cemetery as her lover and current adversary droned on in her ear. She spun her chair back towards her desk and looked over her calendar and appointment book as he blended excuses and suggestions. She nodded to herself as she closed the book with a soft snap. _Nothing that can't be put off a day._

"Richard, don't—I can't think about this right now. I feel like I've got a spike going through my forehead, and honestly, this is probably going to be one of those migraines that makes me throw up." She smiled to herself. Nothing dampened his ardor like the thought of her being sick. The man didn't have a care-taking bone in his body, as far as she could tell. Maybe his family got that part of him.

"I'm going to take a personal day tomorrow. This is going to be a bad one…I can tell already this is going to wipe me out for a good twenty-four hours."

She swiveled back around towards the window. Sheets of rain were poised at the edge of the harbor, like they were lying in wait to attack the city. If she really had been brewing a migraine, she suspected it would have been a killer.

"I'll call you when I feel like it. No, I didn't mean that like it sounded—I'll call you when I can think straight, all right? Now I really have to go." She hit the "End" key without waiting for his good-bye.

She gave a few instructions to her aide while she conspicuously massaged her temple, then walked out to her car. She'd run by the sushi place, grab some take-out, and think about what she'd say when she called Bill.

She wasn't sure when she had decided that she'd call him tonight, or that she couldn't be at her desk as his son was laid to rest. Maybe those decisions had been moving towards her all day like the rain clouds, now almost black in her rear-view mirror.

Fat raindrops began hitting the sidewalk as she unlocked her door. By the time she sat down at her dining room table, a glass of wine on one side of her plate, her phone on the other, the rain was pouring down, turning the world outside her window a blurry gunmetal grey.

.

.

* * *

.

.

She had been sitting at the table for over an hour, mind going in circles as she tried to find the right words. Her phone lay black and cold next to her empty plate. The remaining three pieces of sushi had been dumped in the trash after she'd had to work too hard to get the last bite down, the rice sticky and swelling in her throat. Maybe a fresh glass of wine and a move to the living room would help. She was reaching for the wine bottle when her phone began vibrating against the table.

_Adama Automotive Repair. _

She slowly picked up the phone and stared at the green "Talk" button. She still hadn't figured out what to say.

_When In doubt, keep it simple._

"Hello?" she answered.

Her eyes closed in anticipation of hearing his gravelly voice. She was shocked at how soft it had become.

"Laura?"

"Oh, Bill…Gods, I was getting ready to call you. I am so sorry about Zak." She gripped her free hand into a fist until her fingernails dug into her palm.

"Yeah…thanks, Laura."

She knew there were things she should be saying. A memory of Zak, a mention of praying for the family, something.

"Bill, if there's anything I can do—"

"Actually, that's why I'm calling. You were the only person I could think of to ask…we want to have donations made in"—his voice cracked and she heard him take a couple of deep breaths—"in Zak's memory to go to his old school. The one you were at when…you know. The visit and everything."

"I remember," she said softly." South Caprica Middle. Sure, I can print out the designation and donor forms and fax them over to—are you using Sechrest Funeral Home?"

"Yeah. Neighborhood tradition, right?" The touch of camaraderie in his voice made it sound like they'd never stopped talking at all.

She remembered that first glimpse of him, at the end of the funeral home hall, walking towards her while she waited for grief to shatter her into a million pieces. The mystery, the doubt that had held her away for so long seemed unimportant, here in the face of what really mattered. He'd been there for her when her world fell apart. He'd stayed with her, helped her bury her family…and she was offering to fax some forms. She'd never felt less like her father's daughter.

"Laura? You still there?"

She pinched her upper lip hard as she tried to get herself under control.

"I'm here. Bill, I wish..." There was so much she wanted to say. So much she couldn't say.

"Laura, if we start talking, I…I can't—"

She listened to him suck in a deep breath before he could speak again.

"I've got to hold it together until tomorrow's over. You remember how it is."

"Yes, Bill, I certainly do."

_I remember you were by my side, helping me hold it together._

His voice turned hesitant, almost shy. "Will I see you tomorrow?"

She stared at the phone. She should have been thinking about this as soon as she heard about Zak. Richard's warning and her careless agreement rang in her ears. Everything she had in her life right now seemed to rest on that conversation after the election.

_Promise me you'll stay away from him._

_Of course I promise, Richard. Why wouldn't I?_

The phone felt cold in her hand.

"Bill, there's no good way to say this, so I'm just going to say it. I _want_ to be there for you like you were there for me, but…" she took a deep breath. "The secretary of education can't be seen at a public event like that with convicted felons and, you know…suspicions of criminal activity."

The softness had left his voice when he spoke again, replaced by a bleak hollow tone.

"I see. I guess I wasn't thinking." He cleared his throat. "Thanks for the paperwork, Laura."

"Wait! Bill, I want you to know I'll be there with you in spirit."

_I'll be there in my heart._

"Well, I'll keep an eye out for your spirit then, while I'm burying my son."

Her tears splashed on the black glass as the "Talk" button on the phone went dark.

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	32. Chapter 32 Dreams and Decisions

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Thin slivers of first morning light showed pallid and watery against the overcast sky. Laura sipped at her coffee as she watched the sun start to rise over the horizon. Reaching for the glass of water on the counter, she washed down two aspirin against the dull beginning headache.

Everything in her had wanted to fling some clothes in a bag last night and rush out into the wind and lashing rain, making the long drive to her parents' house as a penance for the pain she had caused. The half-empty bottle of wine still on the table told her she had made the right choice. The last thing Bill needed was another funeral.

_Bill_.

He had filled her dreams after she'd finally corked the bottle, dried her tears and gone on to bed. Scenes from the summer when they thought they had a wide, bright future ahead of them had turned into grey concrete walls that rose to dizzying heights, shiny barbed wire trailing down like Cylon-made vines.

Dreams of a family picnic with her parents and sisters turned into a nightmare, as first her mother, then her father and sisters had gotten up from the plaid blanket spread on the grass and walked away. She remembered the sadness and confusion that had washed over her as each had turned and held up a warning hand, silently telling her not to follow.

In her dream she was getting up to follow them anyway, to beg them to not leave her there alone, and then she heard a range of masculine voices behind her…boisterous giggles, mumbles breaking over a range of pitches, and a low, warm gravely tone, good-natured and friendly. The blanket morphed into a wooden picnic table and she was handing cold fried chicken and bags of chips to Zak and Lee, a masculine arm around her shoulders. Bill was passing paper napkins to the boys and she saw that the ring on his left hand matched the one on hers.

The scene shifted to a grey-tinged overcast light and Zak got up from the table and ran off to play. Laura gripped her coffee cup with both hands as she remembered the sick feeling she'd had in her dream when she realized Zak was running in the same direction her family had gone. She had gotten up to go after him, his narrow tee-shirted back moving further and further away, when she looked back at Bill. He was holding his arms out to her as tears ran down his face. He had been slowly shaking his head back and forth as he motioned her with his hands to come back.

She thought he'd been saying _you can't go_ when she woke up, pillow wet under her face and her heart racing, pounding hard enough to shake the bed. It had been tempting to try to go back to sleep, to capture again the sense of peace she'd felt when she dreamed of her, Bill and the boys being a family. She had looked up at the ceiling for a few minutes, letting the dream images run through her imagination. She realized dully that all she could capture was the image of Bill in tears, reaching out to her while she moved away.

_Godsdamn story of my life._

She had given up on sleep then, and started her morning coffee brewing. The red LED display read 05:15. Plenty of time to pack and drive to the old neighborhood, settle in for a quiet weekend in the suburbs.

_Plenty of time to get to an afternoon funeral._

The sun continued its rise over the city, the overcast sky streaked with pinkish red through the dark clouds as she watched from her window.

_Red sky at night, sailor's delight; Red sky at morning, sailor take warning._

She heard the rhyme in tones of her father's voice and nodded to herself. The storm wasn't over yet, and she'd be driving right into it. She realized her headache had disappeared and she felt like hidden pieces of a puzzle had just clicked into place. She hummed an old song that had been in the top ten that long-ago summer as she turned off the coffee maker and went back in her bedroom to pack.

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* * *

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Richard was chewing on a bite of dry toast, staring at the three newspapers and his stack of morning briefings in front of him when his phone rang. He swallowed as he looked at the display and wondered why his head of special security was calling so early.

"Adar."

"Sir, I've just learned that Rabbit has left home base and doesn't appear to be coming into the city. Did you want any follow-up on this?"

_Migraine…probably be out for twenty-four hours. I'm taking tomorrow off..._

"Mr. President?"

"I'll call you back in a minute," he said, ending the call.

This had been in the back of his mind since he saw the tiny article about the wreck. His fingers started to stain from the newspaper ink as he scanned over the local sections of the papers in front of him. The last one had what he was looking for.

He read the names under the obituary heading, stopping at the entry for Zachary Adama. He wasn't surprised to read that the funeral was this afternoon. As he got up to wash his hands, he mulled over his options. He could just call her, he supposed, just ask her outright what she was planning. But that could lead to a discussion he wasn't ready to have….

He stared at his phone. It wasn't like she'd been seen slipping out of a hotel room. The part of him that remembered the dedicated woman who had been at his side, supporting him through his first campaign, wanted to let this go. She had known the kid, had known the family for years, after all.

Glaring at the obituary, Richard was suddenly angry that she hadn't just asked him to understand, and he wondered what that said about them, that she apparently had found it easier to lie. He shrugged away the niggling guilt that he'd been lying to her as well, even if just by omission, for months, telling himself she had never actually asked how far his security detail extended into her life.

_Oh, frak it._

He read over the details in the obituary. The list of surviving and 'preceded in death by' kin read like a police blotter. Some agency or another would be running surveillance on the funeral. It was too good an opportunity to pass up for the organized crime section.

He punched in the number for his security head.

"Here's what I want you to do…just have one of your team do a drive-by, see if her car's there, see if she's standing with the family. They're to only take action if it looks like Lau—uh, _Rabbit _is at any risk. If it appears that she notices the agent and questions his or her presence, that's what I want her told."

"That it was a safety measure." Richard could hear the faint sarcasm in the other man's voice.

"Keeping in mind that my preference is that they not be noticed at all." He touched the phone off and wished he still had some old phones with slammable receivers.

He'd let her have this one, as long as she was discreet. He pulled the dossier of his new assistant out of the pile in front of him, smiling as he read that the elegant young woman had passed all the security background checks with flying colors. Richard admired the jet-black waves that framed her face, giving her a soft inviting look, even in a government I.D. shot.

He wondered what code name his special security would use for her.

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* * *

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Laura almost dropped the bottle of milk in her hand as the old man bumped into her in the tiny dairy section.

"Pardon me."

She looked up at the man who had spoken to her, close to her father's age and neatly dressed in a black suit and an old-fashioned fedora. His smile crinkled his olive-toned cheeks but didn't extend to his dark, almost black eyes.

"No problem. I'll get out of your way," she said, straightening from where she'd leaned over to look for the butter.

"You're not in my way at all. To be honest, I was wondering if you were related to someone I once knew."

She swept her hair behind her ear. Something about this old man made her uncomfortable. "Who would that be?"

His smile widened, showing strong white teeth, incongruous with his age. "A Mr. Roslin, used to live in this neighborhood. You look to be about the age of his eldest daughter…you've got his look around the eyes."

Her gaze wandered to the heavily carved cane in his hand. He didn't seem to be putting any of his weight on it and she wondered if it was just for show.

"Yes, I'm his daughter, Laura Roslin." She met his eyes. "And you are…?"

He looked around the small store. No one was near this section.

"I'm Sam Adama. I counted your father as a friend, when he was alive."

She frowned. "I know the Adama family that lives around here, but I don't remember my father ever mentioning your name."

"No, I don't imagine so." The man suddenly looked more bent with age. "He was a good man, gone too soon. I thought I'd get an offering for his grave while I'm here…I'll be attending my great-nephew's funeral this afternoon."

_Bill's uncle_. She knew something about his name was ringing a bell. She wondered it if was a warning sign.

"On the shelf by your left shoulder." His voice now held the faint quaver of age.

"Excuse me?" She tried not to stare as his posture and stance seemed to age him past his years in front of her.

"The butter you were looking for." He leaned on his cane as he turned, a small grocery basket of offerings in his other hand.

She found the wrapped square of butter where he had said it would be and finished her shopping for her weekend supplies. He had been perfectly kind and friendly, but she found herself dawdling in a back aisle as he paid for his purchases, waiting until he was out the door before approaching the counter.

_My father had interesting friends. And Bill has interesting relatives._

_._

_._

* * *

_._

_._

The sky was still overcast when she returned to the Roslin house but the oppressive heaviness in the air had dissipated, leaving the morning a little more comfortable. She parked her silver sedan in the garage next to the old tarp-covered Mustang and headed for the kitchen door, hands full of bags and keys.

As she passed the Mustang, the catch on her purse snagged the edge of the plastic, pulling the tarp back over the right fender to reveal the glittery emerald green shine. She touched the sleek finish and wondered if the battery still held a charge. As she unlocked the door, Laura glanced at the steel shelving against the cinderblock wall of the garage. Her father's battery charger was still in its place.

She put away the small bag of groceries and checked the time. Not yet noon…she closed her eyes and tried to visualize the instructions Bill had given her when he showed her how to use the charger. A smile played over her lips as she remembered the warm summer day in the garage, a dance song playing on the battered workbench radio. She had made a teasing remark about his many talents and he had grinned and pulled her into his arms.

_And I can dance._

He'd spun her through a few steps as she'd giggled and tried to follow his lead, battery charger forgotten until her father had come out of the kitchen onto the garage steps with a raised eyebrow. Bill had let go of her hand and hip immediately but she had felt his touch for hours, and it had made her smile.

She slowly approached the covered car that contained so many of her best memories…and some of her worst. Tarp pulled back, it looked as beautiful as ever. Bill's voice was in her thoughts, guiding her as she hooked up the charger and popped the hood. She hummed the song they'd danced to as she carefully connected the clamps, red to positive, black to negative. As she finished, a scrap of lyric came back to her.

_Cause now I'm sitting here with the man I sent away long ago..._

Her hands blurred in front of her as sudden tears filled her eyes. Wiping them away, she set the timer for two hours and went inside. She had a funeral to get ready for and her mind was still whirling with so many questions.

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* * *

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Showered and dressed, Laura went out to check that the charge had taken, and was gratified that the Mustang's engine started on the first try. Putting everything away in its place, she went back inside and went over her plans again.

She'd found her old butterfly-patterned scarf in her dresser drawer, wondering if it had been her father or one of her sisters who had carefully soaked out her bloodstains. It would cover her hair, she thought, and her vintage oversized sunglasses would hide most of her face. She had driven by the cemetery on her way back from the corner market. It looked like the church was still unconcerned with keeping the hedges trimmed back by the side entrance near the service road. She doubted Bill would even know she was there, but she would know. That would have to do.

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* * *

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"Hey, Mr. Adama, you about ready?"

Bill turned away from the row of framed photographs on his dresser and looked at Kara as she leaned against his bedroom door. A glance in the mirror told him he was ready as he was going to be…black Henley shirt under his black leather cut, black jeans, and black boots.

"Almost." He ran a comb through his hair, something on his right upper arm making a soft crinkling sound as he moved. Kara stepped into the room.

"What's with your arm? You okay?"

He smiled at her concern. He should be asking her that, with her face looking drained, her pallor only broken by the dark circles under her warm brown eyes. She was dressed in black from head to toe as well, plain black leather jacket over a black long-sleeved shirt, black jeans and boots that mirrored his own.

He looked down at his arm. "I'm fine. Got some ink yesterday."

She tilted her head in a question and he pushed up his right sleeve. Under a layer of plastic wrapping was a fresh stylized "Z" on his bicep, black ink edged with slightly raised pinkish skin. He watched Kara blink hard as her nose reddened. She wiped a hand over her eyes and shoved her hand back in her pocket and nodded.

"Looks good. He'd like it."

"I should've done it a long time ago." He sighed. "I hope he never thought I was favoring his brother over him."

Kara smiled. "You mean that "L" on your other arm?" Her smile turned into a wry smirk. "I asked him about that once. He told me he figured it was more about some lady named Laura you'd been into once than it was about Lee."

She turned serious as she walked into the room and laid a hand on his arm. "Mr. Adama, Zak never—look, it was good between you and him. He got it, how you felt about him and Lee. He wanted to make you proud of him, but…." She looked towards the photographs, him and his sons at different ages. "He knew, whether he made the grade or not, you were still gonna love him."

He watched a tear run down her cheek and something told him she hadn't gotten much of that kind of love in her own life. An impulse pulled him towards a small box on his dresser.

"Look, Kara, now that Zak's gone—"

She took a step back and straightened her shoulders. "I know…I get it. I need to move on down the road, not be hanging around…I know you said you were fine with me staying here if I wanted to and everything, but there's not really any point anymore, right?" She bit her lip and turned towards the door. "I'll get all my stuff out by Monday, if that's okay."

The small box snapped shut.

"Kara, shut up and get over here." He was looking at something shiny in his palm as she walked over to stand next to him.

Bill cleared his throat twice, rubbing his thumb over the silver ring. "When my father died, I let each of the boys pick something of his to keep for themselves, something that would remind them of their grandfather. Zak…he's—he was something of a romantic. He wanted me to keep my Dad's wedding ring for him…something special for when he met the right girl." He looked at her with misting eyes. "A couple of months ago, he asked if I knew where it was. Said he was going to be asking me for it soon."

He watched as she pressed her hand over her mouth hard, and he could feel everything she was trying to hold back behind her wounded eyes.

"You should've been part of our family, Kara. You would've made a good daughter-in-law." He gave her a watery smile. "I always did want a girl."

He listened to her harsh breathing as she visibly fought to get her feelings under control. Maybe this had been too much…maybe this had been wishful thinking on his part, wanting to keep some connection to Zak through this kid. Maybe he'd read this all wrong, and she was ready to get away from everything that reminded her of Zak, get back to a law-abiding normal life….

She extended her hand, slightly shaking and with fingernails bitten to the quick. Bill looked at the engraved symbols inside that meant "family" to him, then looked at her fingers and was glad he'd never had it resized. He didn't want to saddle this girl with the look of being married—she needed to find that part of her life on her own.

The ring slipped over her thumb, nestling between the first and second joint like it had been made for that exact spot.

"That won't tell anybody…any guy that you're married." He watched her stare at her tiny reflection in the silver band. "But it'll tell everybody that you've got family."

A thready laugh came from her lips. "And they better not frak with me, right?"

He hugged her tight, wishing she was dressed in white and his son was at her side, then carefully tucked that image away.

"And they better not frak with you, is right."

He hugged her again and then let her go, telling her to go wash her face like he used to tell the boys when they were still young enough to cry around him.

She was past the door when he called her back.

"Kara? Two things…I'd like you to stand with the family today."

"I'd—I'd like that, if you're sure it's okay."

"It is." He started running a comb through his thick hair again.

"What's the other thing?"

He saw that her eyes had cleared and he thought he could see some color coming back to her face. He hoped wherever his son was, he could see it, too.

"Lose the 'Mr. Adama'. My road name's Husker."

Her quick smile was as bright as the shining ring on her thumb. It was gone in a flash as the weight of the day settled back over them both, but in that instant, Bill knew he'd done the right thing.

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	33. Funeral Meets

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The silence was jarring after the road noise stopped and the engine sounds died down. She pulled up on the parking brake and turned everything off as she glanced around the empty . It was early enough so that Laura thought she could risk a quick walk over to her family plot. The carved pink-white marble gravestone marked the final resting place of the Roslins. She paused mid-way and looked at how the car, half-hidden by overgrown foliage, lined up with the awning-covered site of Zak's grave. She should have a clear line of sight, and the intervening rows of stones would provide additional concealment. Working her way through the maze of flat and upright markers, she paused in front of the Roslin stone and after looking around again for observers, sank down to her knees in front of her parents' graves.

The wind and rain had weathered the carvings over time; it was easy to see, even without reading the dates, that her mother's name had been chiseled years before her father's. At least her father's and sisters' names on their headstones had lost that raw painful look, like you could run a finger down a letter's edge and draw blood. Zak's stone would be like that for a year or so. She wondered if Bill knew that, or cared. She frowned at her faint reflection in the glossy marble. She didn't know if he was one to visit family cemeteries or not. Maybe that wasn't a thing in his family. . .

She was finished with one of her favorite prayers for the dead and was half-way through a whispered entreaty for her family to welcome Zak on the Shore when she felt something soft and light fall against her knee. She opened her eyes and reached out to pick up the yellow and red flower that a light breeze had blown in front of her. Up in the niche at the side of the stone was a small wicker box. Curious, she rose to examine it further. It was sitting in front of a grey bedraggled basket that held the stems and dried crumbs of the last offering placed there. She remembered with some guilt that she'd left the basket over a year ago.

Odd…along with the usual flowers and doll-sized baked loaves of bread, there was a miniature bottle of...she turned it so she could see the label, a bit guilty again that she was handling something that wasn't hers.

_Tauron whisky. The good kind._ She poked again and found a hand-rolled cigar in between the flower stems, and a tiny bag of sugar crystal star-candy. She remembered the exchange at the corner market that morning, the soft voice…

_I thought I'd get an offering for his grave while I'm here._

She reverently pushed the box back into its niche. The old man, Bill's uncle, really must have thought a great deal of her father. She wondered why she'd never heard his name in her house, even after Bill had started coming around. It seemed like it would have been natural for her dad to ask Bill how his uncle was doing, or—

"Do you think he would have approved?" The quiet voice behind her made her jump. She turned and wondered how an old man with a cane could walk so soundlessly. His eyes were hidden by sunglasses almost as big as her own and something about that made her glad.

"Yes, I think he would, Mr. Adama. This is a lovely offering. I know he'd appreciate it, and I do as well."

He nodded solemnly as he looked around the cemetery, obviously scanning for something in particular. He finished his survey and seemed to relax a bit. "You're very welcome, Miss Roslin."

She saw a car pull into the main parking lot up near the road. She needed to get settled into the Mustang before people began arriving en masse. Glancing at her watch, she looked up at the old man. For the first time, she noticed two large men waiting several yards from where she'd parked. They were similar in complexion to Bill and his uncle. More relatives of his she'd never heard of?

She opened her mouth to ask if they were his family when the afternoon sun broke through the cloud cover and shone down on the men. It only lasted a second but it was long enough for her to see the uneven bulk under the men's' jackets that broke the smooth lines of their suits. They looked as solid as the stone that filled the cemetery, both men standing perfectly still, hands clasped in front of them. One kept his eyes moving over the area, the other kept his eyes trained on the old man in front of her.

Her voice was steady but cautious as she said, "I suppose you'll be going inside soon. It looks like it's time for the family to start coming in."

He smiled and she was struck again by Sam Adama's white, even teeth, made even starker by the contrast of the thick black glasses. She could see the bottom of an 'Omega' tattoo under the right earpiece, the symbol filled in with a darker ink. He had known loss as well, and she wondered if them both being widowers had been part of his bond with her father.

"Like you, Miss Roslin, I have decided to honor my great-nephew's passing from something of a safe distance."

He nodded at the men waiting for him then turned back to her and removed his sunglasses. His deep-set eyes in their nest of wrinkles hinted that they had seen terrible things, but she imagined she could see flickerings of kindness, and a deep, deep sadness. "Even if we can't be seen by most onlookers, and I do believe that will be the case in the spot you've chosen, Zak will know we're here. And I believe my nephew will know as well."

She couldn't have stopped the next couple of tears if her life had depended on it. "Zak…he was so young."

Sam Adama sighed and replaced his sunglasses. "There'll be others younger than him waiting to greet him on the Shore." He ran a papery-skinned finger under the edge of his glasses and it came away wet. "But my husband, who loved my family very much, and your parents, and Bill's, and other good people will be there as well."

"I know…it's just—"

His head cocked at something she couldn't hear. "Miss Roslin, we both need to go. Now."

He took her arm in a surprisingly strong grip. Turning her away from the main parking lot, he began walking her towards her car.

He was back with his men and she was just closing her car door when she heard the low thundering roar of dozens of motorcycles approaching the cemetery. Cars and trucks began pulling into the parking lot, a couple of cars disconcertingly similar to her solid but non-descript government-issued sedan.

More clouds were rolling in, promising a rainy service. Laura scrunched down in her seat and hoped she'd pulled her car in far enough. Then she breathed a sigh of relief—if she hadn't, Sam Adama would have told her. She looked at the spot where his…_oh, hell, his bodyguards, no use pretending it hadn't been obvious_, and realized they were all positioned so as to be almost invisible.

She wondered what had happened that the nice old man had lost all of his teeth and had them replaced with top quality implants. She somehow doubted it had been from age and decay. Remembered neighborhood whispers of Ha'la'tha activity came back to her and she admitted to herself what her subconscious had been trying to tell her since the grocery store…Bill was related to a very dangerous man.

A bright flash of lightning illuminated her father's headstone. She saw again the respectful offering left for her father by Bill's uncle, and wondered if she could say the same about herself.

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Bill never thought he'd miss that asshole Zarek. If he was here, though, Zarek could have been the one helping Carolanne hold it together, and Lee could have been by Bill's side.

Instead, he and Lee stood separated by Zak's casket and the empty hole below it that the fake grass barely disguised. Carolanne had settled down to a tired weeping that seemed to fit with the cold drizzle that had started to fall. He glanced at Kara to his right and saw her standing stone-faced, looking like she was ready to fight, and thought again that she would have been good for his son.

Saul and Ellen stood at some distance to his left, and as he looked their way, he realized how…_old_ they were all getting. The younger guys, though…Helo and Lee, Tyrol, Gaeta and the rest…they looked like he and Saul had looked once—strong and tough and ready to take on the world. Then there were the other old men. Fisk stood on the other side of Carolanne, holding a black umbrella over her head as he kept his face tilted away from the parking lot. Bill wondered why he bothered anymore, with his career all but over, then his hand brushed the folded paper in his pocket. Fisk was risking charges to pass along a list of agencies coming into his jurisdiction for surveillance duty today.

He'd tell Lee afterwards that his great-uncle had been there, watching from the shadows near the side entrance. Maybe tell him some more about that side of the family. The priest's chant faded into the background as Bill stood with his head slightly bowed and watched a rivulet of rainwater begin washing away at the camouflaged mound of dirt.

_Dirt-eater!_

Selfishly, he was glad that he and his boys had been born on Caprica, that he and they hadn't gone through the derision his father and uncle had for being Tauron-born. He'd heard stories of taunts and worse, but the Cylon war had broken some of the old barriers down. He wondered if his Uncle Sam ever felt obsolete.

Somehow, he doubted it.

The musicians started to play a song Kara said Zak had liked, soft and melodic against the background of whispering rain. The ceremony was winding to a close after what felt like hours. He was tired, and in his mind, Zak had been on the Shore for days, ever since his neck was snapped. What was left in the wooden box was sacred, but it wasn't Zak.

Fresh tears had started to mingle with the drizzle as the priest went into a prayer for the gods to provide comfort to the bereaved. Almost at the end, he let his thoughts turn to Laura, the way Zak had laughed with her, the way she had been so patient with both boys…and how good it had felt to comfort her when she needed him so much after the accident.

He'd tried to work out the difference—why she didn't feel that same urge to comfort him as he did her, and wondered, as he watched droplets form and run off the edge of the casket, if he'd been wrong all along about the feelings between them. His shoulders hunched against the rain. He tried to pull some comfort from the gods and their priest, although in his heart he thought it was all pretty much bullshit.

As the prayer was ending, the cemetery was lit up by lightning flashing overhead. In that flash, he looked towards where his uncle had been standing and caught a reflected shimmer of green. He felt Kara hold an umbrella over him and, as his vision cleared from the falling rain, he saw the white of a headscarf, a shiny black canvas roof, and sunglasses that had been taken off to reveal what he knew would be hazel-green eyes.

_The gods had answered the old priest's prayer_. Bill felt a warmth along his left side as though she was standing there, shielding him as best she could from the chill of the late afternoon rain. For the first time in years he echoed the words that ended the prayer of comfort, thanking gods he no longer believed in.

Thanking Laura for being there.

The service ended with hugs and hand-gripping between his men and their families, and he finally was able to walk around the gravesite and hug his remaining son. He watched Fisk lead Carolanne away and knew he'd see her safely home and keep her car keys for tonight.

"Hope they got what they came for," Saul growled in his ear.

Bill followed Saul's glare to the black sedans that seemed to loiter in the upper parking lot. "Think they're Colonials?"

"Frak, yes, they're Colonials. Look at the extra tint on the windows, mother-frakkers."

Bill looked around at the members of his club. "We got anything to worry about?"

Saul shook his watchcap-covered head. "Nah, the boys with outstanding papers are back at the club waiting on us."

"Might not be about us, Saul. We had company. My uncle was here during the service, over by the side gate."

Saul's eyes widened. "_He_ was here? I didn't see anybody."

Bill gave him a long, thoughtful look. "Nobody? You didn't see anybody over that way?"

"Saw some shapes, figured they were cemetery stuff."

"Good…that's good. If you didn't see anything, close as you were, maybe those assholes didn't see them either."

"Them?"

The priest was standing with the funeral director, small symbolic shovel in his hand, obviously waiting for them. Lee stood to one side, looking like he was fifteen and in trouble again as he stared at his feet. Kara was at his side, straight as an arrow. The casket had been lowered all the way to the bottom of the grave.

"I'll tell you later. We need to…."

Saul nodded and took his friend's hand, their rough fingers twisting together as they walked to the dark pile of dirt that waited for their shovel. They each took a turn, Lee handing the small shovel to Kara at the end. Bill looked away as she dug and threw dirt into the grave harder than she needed to, then handed the shovel to the priest and stuck her hands back into her pockets.

"Son?" Bill motioned for Lee to come over. "Make sure she knows she's welcome to come on over to the club."

He watched Lee walk over to Kara, looked up at the parking lot, then over at the side entrance. The black sedans were gone.

So was the emerald green Mustang.


	34. It's You

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Laura was exhausted as she pulled the car back into the garage next to her work sedan. Still, she didn't enter the house until she carefully pulled the blue plastic tarp over the vintage muscle car and double-bolted the automatic garage door. She took off her shoes as soon as she got inside, setting them on the little bench by the back door.

She noted with a pang that her father's garden shoes still sat there as well, long-dried traces of dirt still visible. One day, she'd decide to throw them out or give them away, but for just this moment, it felt nice to see his shoes next to hers. _She could almost pretend_…she shook her head. At her age it was called denial, not pretending. She supposed she should examine that idea at some point, but it wouldn't be today.

She laid the damp scarf over the back of a kitchen chair to dry, smoothing out the wrinkles until it hung straight. Pulling out the meat and bread she'd bought earlier that day, she threw together a sandwich and ate it standing over the sink. Getting out the good china and silver for just herself and a single sandwich had just felt wrong.

She looked at the kitchen table that had held five place settings in its day, then four, and finally just one. As she chewed, she thought how lonely her father must have been, and wished she'd come over more often. She hoped he had friends over, after Sandra had moved out. Then she imagined Sam Adama at the family table, papers from the office safe spread out in front of them, and was suddenly glad she'd decided not to sit in her old place at the table.

Finishing in a few bites, she rinsed off her hands and began going through the first floor rooms, closing the blinds and checking the locks, trying to capture the feeling of being home again. It felt like it was going to be a long night, one that might be good for thinking through some things, maybe deciding what should be let go, what should be kept.

Images from the day played through her mind as she went through the house. Lee had grown into a strong young man, and she wondered if his mother knew how lucky she was that Lee was still there for her. He seemed to have inherited his father's sense of commitment.

And the young blond woman who had stood next to Bill, dressed all in black…a pang of jealousy ran through Laura as she thought of her. Not that she might be Bill's girlfriend—even at a distance it was clear she was much, much too young—but that it was so easy for her and the others to be there for Bill, out in the open.

She hoped Bill had seen that she had been there, but thought it unlikely, with the rain coming down in the gloom and Bill's eyes not moving from the graveside service. She wished she could call him, let him know she'd been there…. She wrapped her arms around herself as she finished her rounds. Her comforting words probably wouldn't mean much, coming after the fact. He needed her when he needed her, and as far as he knew, she hadn't been there at all.

His uncle had seemed sure Bill would feel their presence…normally she was skeptical of such things, but as she sat in the living room that held decades of memories, she thought maybe he could be right. She could still get a feeling of her parents and sisters when she was here, even though their physical selves were long buried. Something of their love remained.

The old family sofa still had faint impressions from her family's use, the slightly sunken cushion where her mother had spent so many of her last days, the arm that had rub marks from Cheryl's legs slung over the end as she watched television. Laura settled into the seat that had been her mother's and curled her legs under her. Leaning her head on the overstuffed back, she began to relax, and thought about nothing at all for a while.

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* * *

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The rain had stopped spitting against the windows an hour ago, leaving behind a residual dampness that she was fighting with the low flames from the gas logs in the fireplace. The house always felt lived-in even when months went by between her visits, but the echoes of the life force that had been her family seemed to diminish a little more each time.

On days like this, she felt precariously balanced between her existence in the city, the apartment she had arranged to fit who she was now, and the memories of who she had been when she lived within these walls. One day, she supposed, she'd reach a tipping point, like realizing a favorite, perfectly broken-in pair of shoes weren't ever going to come back in style…they might be a sweet souvenir of happy times, but there came a day when you realized you'd never wear them again. She looked around the room, at the signs that her family, the Roslin family, had lived here, and knew she wasn't at that day. Not quite yet.

The television reflected her image back at her in its silent dark screen. She hadn't touched the remote since she got back, content to listen to the creaks and whispers of the old house and try to catch the faint feel of her family again. Even diminished, it was worth trying to catch.

There were montages in movies she'd watched, scenes of a woman in an empty house intercut with shots of the past. No matter how evocative, those scenes always ended the same; the house remained empty and the woman was left alone. Laura brushed a tear from the corner of her eye and wondered what it would take to see a happy ending. Maybe those were reserved for people who made wiser choices in their lives. People who were better than her.

She'd go through the channel guide in a minute, see if there was anything worth watching. Maybe pour a glass of wine first—she wasn't ready to see a screen full of happy people yet.

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* * *

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The light from a single headlamp cut through the dark, shining in through the living room window, and an engine she just now realized she'd been waiting to hear roared for a few more seconds before cutting off. Her feelings of trepidation surprised her as she started uncurling her legs, wincing at the stiffness that had set in. She could hear the crunch of the gravel under heavy boots coming towards the front door.

_This was going to be horrible._ She had let Bill down when he needed her. The disapproval she felt was coming from her own guilt, she knew, but it felt like the house, her family, the universe were all regarding her with disappointment.

She was already at the door, her hand on the doorknob, when the doorbell rang. She braced herself to take the hit of the condemning look she knew she'd see in his eyes.

_Well, I'll keep an eye out for your spirit then, while I'm burying my son._

Remembering his words had her stomach clenching hard as she took a deep breath to steady herself. She could take whatever he needed to say. She would take it like the penitent she wanted to be, would be, for him.

Swinging the door open, she met his eyes, as blue as she remembered and full of sadness. Wordless, she stepped back to let him inside. He didn't move, just stood there under the porch light looking at her. A look of something that seemed surprisingly like gratitude came into his eyes. She was opening her mouth to tell him to come in when he finally spoke, a touch of wonderment in his voice.

"You came."

She hadn't realized how much she'd hoped he'd seen her until she blinked back tears of relief at his tone. He slowly crossed the threshold into her home.

Laura reached past and shut the door behind him, accidentally brushing her body against his side, and he didn't pull away. That was all it took. She turned towards him, slipping her arms under his open vest and up around his back, and he made no move to stop her. She laid her cheek against his, the fine-grained leather of his cut feeling cold to her skin under her blouse. She could smell the rain in his hair.

The thought flashed through her mind that she should be comforting him. Then his arms went around her waist and he rested his head on her shoulder, and she knew she already was.

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* * *

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They stood like that in the foyer, not speaking. Laura could feel his deep easy breaths pressing his chest to hers in a remembered rhythm and was content to stand there, holding him and feeling his soft exhalations warm against her ear. She had begun to move her hand up and down his back in gentle strokes when he pulled away, touching his lips to her cheek.

"The priest was saying a prayer for comfort to be delivered to the bereaved. I was thinking 'what a load of bullshit' when I looked over to the side entrance and saw your car." His arms tightened around her waist for a second. "It was like I could feel you next to me. It was a good feeling."

He searched her face as she tried to read his expression. She could feel his gaze stripping off layers of her public self down to where the real Laura lived. There was grief in his eyes…regret, confusion…and somewhere down in the depths of his look, there was a frail shimmer of hope that terrified her.

It suddenly felt like too much. It was her turn to pull away. He seemed to read her mind as he let go of her waist. She dropped her arms from around him, then reached down and held his hand as she turned towards the living room.

"Let's sit down. You must be exhausted." She noticed he didn't withdraw his hand as they went to the couch.

He lowered himself down into the low-slung seat, and she realized with a pang that both of them had lost that youthful body ease that came from the certainty that movement would never be uncomfortable. One more thing she'd taken for granted until it was gone, she thought, as she took the seat beside him.

"Yeah, I'm pretty worn out." He rubbed the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes for a second, then sighed. "You know how it is…there's something you need to do every second, your mind's all on that, and then you get a—a gap, a break, and all you can think of is you'll never see him again."

She nodded as she curled her legs under her again and leaned into his side.

"And then you wish you had more to do, so you wouldn't have any time to think," she said.

He rubbed her thigh absently as he nodded, looking off into the blue gas flames in the fireplace. "I knew you'd get it. Get how that feels."

"I do. I remember." She leaned her head on his shoulder and was glad she wasn't looking into his eyes anymore. "That made it worse when I realized what I'd done, telling you I couldn't be there."

His arm fit around her as easily as it had almost thirty years ago. "I shouldn't have said what I said. I shouldn't have hung up on you like that. It was just…" His sigh was deep and ragged. "The worst times of our lives seem to find us together."

Her quiet hum of agreement was the only sound in the room until she spoke. "It'd be nice if that could be different."

She felt him nod next to her.

"Yeah, it would," he said. Silence filled the room again.

She finally squeezed his hand then released it. "Do you want a drink? I've got scotch, bourbon, wine…."

His soft chuckle surprised her. "I'm so frakking sick of booze right now…." He chuckled again at her raised eyebrow. "After the service, Saul and Ellen set up an open bar in the club, wanted to give Zak a fitting send-off. After the fifth or sixth round of shots and stories, everybody ran out of things to say about Zak and started to mourn over their own people. When I started feeling like I wanted to cry over my grandmother again, I knew it was time to get out for a while. Clear my head." He reached up to touch her cheek, and she saw his eyes glistening.

"When I saw the lights on over here, I knew this is where I needed to be."

She turned her head to kiss his palm, then pushed a lock of hair back that was falling across his forehead, her fingers lingering against his skin.

"How about some hot tea?"

"Sounds perfect."

She reached for his hand without thinking as they got up and went to the kitchen. It was like they needed to have some physical connection at all times, like that was entirely within the realm of possibility. She sighed. The illusion of togetherness would be broken soon enough. She wasn't sure if it would be worse to give in to the closeness now, then feel it break tomorrow, or not to go there at all. She looked down at their joined hands and realized the choice had already been made.

They were already there.

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* * *

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A mug of hot tea in front of both of them, they sat at the kitchen table, letting their hands do the talking with small touches and light strokes. A wind had come up, catching the neatly trimmed branches of the forsythia bush outside the kitchen window and whipping them lightly against the glass, making a shushing sound in the silence. Laura glanced at the neat line of the hedges backlit in the moonlight as she sipped her tea and let her mind wander.

Richard still kept the contract with his lawn service to maintain the yard, although Laura suspected it was paid for with an automatic renewal and he just never thought about it anymore. She wasn't sure how much he thought about her anymore, either.

He still wanted to meet with her for a thirty minute frak in his private office every other week or so, they had lunch once a week…it had become a bit like going to the gym. The physical side of her was usually relieved afterwards that she'd gone and gotten through it, but she was starting to need to give herself a pep talk to get moving towards his office. And like the gym, her main motivation was that she was afraid of what would happen if she stopped. Afraid of what that deterioration would look like.

It was nice to put all that aside, here in the warm kitchen. There was something about the way Bill stroked her hand, his forefinger following the small bones, tracing the blue veins under the surface of her skin, that made her feel cared for. She smiled as he started rubbing the knuckles with a slightly firmer pressure that felt almost therapeutic.

Since she'd developed a touch of arthritis in the joints of her hand, she'd been self-conscious about them…they always looked a little more raw than the women she met professionally, almost like hands of someone who lived by physical labor. Hand creams, even the expensive ones, hadn't helped the roughness that was bone-deep. But tonight, under Bill's touch, they felt beautiful, like the hands of someone cherished. She wished life could be simple enough so she could have just this one thing for longer than a night.

Bill had relaxed over the tea and the quiet, looking around the kitchen like he was seeing an old friend for the first time in months. Something seemed to catch his eye and he stopped stroking her hands and pointed to the counter by the sink.

"New set of canisters, right?" He nodded towards the sleek chrome tins. "You used to have canisters with farmhouses on them." He smiled but his mouth held a downward tilt.

_Outlaw bikers and kitchen canisters…another Adama_ _paradox in a long line_ _of many._

"Yes, I got a set for my last birthday…I liked the set I already had at my apartment so I brought these out here."

And if Richard ever came around her apartment, he would have known that, although she suspected he had sent his personal assistant out to pick up something nice but not too personal.

"I always liked the farmhouse ones…your Dad used to say the little people in the scenes always looked happy and safe," he said.

Her eyebrows drew together. "I remember him saying that, too. Kind of a family thing…you must have been over here a lot." _More than I ever realized._

"Well, you were off at school, then working…and Sandra and Cheryl had their own lives." He looked into the thick china mug. "Things with me weren't—there were times when it was just what I needed, to come over here, see if anything needed fixing, have a drink with your Dad. I got to know him pretty good."

"Well," she corrected him without thinking.

He got up and took the empty mugs over to the sink, beginnings of a wry smile on his lips. "He used to do that, too. I told him it was my Tauron heritage."

"Oh? How'd that work?" she said as she got up.

He grabbed the dishcloth from over the faucet and ran it over the table like it was an old habit.

"He told me I was full of shit, but I got points for coming up with a plausible excuse."

Laura rinsed out the cups and put them in the drainer, then turned and braced her hands on the sink as she tried to pull together the right words.

"Bill, the last time you were in this house, I said some things…I said a _lot _of things that could have waited."

The lines graven around his mouth were still deep and he still looked exhausted, but something eased around his eyes just a touch. "That means a lot, hearing you say that now."

He leaned against the table, facing her, mirroring her posture as he braced himself with his hands against the surface. "I should have handled things differently. I was so…frakking _focused_ on doing what I had to do, I lost sight of how things would look to you. What you must have thought."

_Like chess pieces on a board, both of us afraid what the next move will mean._

She heard the tick of the kitchen clock as it marked the passing of another minute, another piece of time gone. The memory of Zak's casket, the latest one in what felt like a long line tonight came to her, reminding her how unexpectedly life can change.

She wasn't sure who moved first, but stepping forward and meeting him in the narrow kitchen felt like the first right move she'd made in a long time.

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End file.
